Top 100 Expedient Quotes
#1. In their efforts to provide a sufficiency of water where there was not one, men have resorted to every expedient from prayer to dynamite. The story of their efforts is, on the whole, one of pathos and tragedy, of a few successes and many failures
Walter Prescott Webb
#2. I have learned that the cost of everything from a royal suite to a bottle of soda water can be halved by the simple expedient of saying it must be halved.
Robert Byron
#3. Liberals have been driven to the desperate expedient of attributing ... social pathology in today's ghettos to 'a legacy of slavery' even though black children grew up with two parents more often under slavery than today.
Thomas Sowell
#5. Be it known that Men of dull faculties and slight wisdom, They who cling proudly to signs, Cannot believe in this Dharma. Now I, joyfully and fearlessly, In the midst of the bodhisattvas Frankly casting aside my expedient devices, Merely preach the Unexcelled Path.
Gautama Buddha
#6. We stand for the maintenance of private property ... We shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order.
Adolf Hitler
#7. Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.
Edward Abbey
#8. A good and faithful judge ever prefers the honorable to the expedient.
Horace
#9. Political realists see the world as it is: an arena of power politics moved primarily by perceived immediate self-interests, where morality is rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest.
Saul D. Alinsky
#10. The censure of frequent and long parentheses has led writers into the preposterous expedient of leaving out the marks by which they are indicated. It is no cure to a lame man to take away his crutches.
Richard Whately
#11. The discovery of a corpse's head on campus has worked as an expedient in getting the administrative staff to work before ten, despite the impending blizzard.
Meg Cabot
#12. There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.
William Shenstone
#13. It has been an easy, and a popular expedient of late years, to deny the personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were too much for our belief.
Homer
#14. It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.
Sandra Day O'Connor
#16. With the ambitious, the failure of one expedient is the suggestion of another; but with the irresolute, defeat usually occasions abandonment of purpose.
Norm MacDonald
#17. It is our happiness to live under the government of a PRINCE who is satisfied with ruling according to law; as every other good prince will - We enjoy under his administration all the liberty that is proper and expedient for us.
Jonathan Mayhew
#18. I came into office to do what was correct, not to see what was politically expedient to get re-elected.
Luis Fortuno
#19. I am not a pyromaniac," I said. "I only set things on fire because it's expedient
Christina Henry
#20. Young horses who cannot bear the whip or spur find life hard. At every smart they start forward and rush to their destruction, and when the way is stony and difficult, they know no better expedient than to overturn the cart and gallop madly away.
Selma Lagerlof
#21. She took recourse to the expedient of constantly terrified children. She lied.
Victor Hugo
#22. A free America ... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.
Frank Lloyd Wright
#23. Active, pulsing love took a secondary position to expedient need and the narcoleptic inertia of the day-to-day.
Craig Lancaster
#24. [Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.
George Bernard Shaw
#25. Heuristics are simplified rules of thumb that make things simple and easy to implement. But their main advantage is that the user knows that they are not perfect, just expedient, and is therefore less fooled by their powers. They become dangerous when we forget that.
Anonymous
#26. It is expedient that there should be gods, and, since it is expedient, let us believe that gods exist.
Ovid
#27. It was now packed inside the beaded bag, which, Harry was impressed to learn, Hermione had protected from the Snatchers by the simple expedient of stuffing it down her sock.
J.K. Rowling
#28. If my favorite, most comfortable place is by our fireplace in cold weather, expedient places are on an airplane, in a waiting room or even waiting in line; frequently these days, while on the phone having been 'put on hold.'
Joyce Carol Oates
#29. Environmental quality was drastically improved while economic activity grew by the simple expedient of removing lead from gasoline - which prevented it from entering the environment.
Barry Commoner
#30. Knowing that home was hateful to us both, I imagined that her calling me by the word meant I was expedient, or sturdy; but if I could only keep her hand in mine, I knew I would give my four limbs and my heart for the privilege, becoming instead four walls and a roof.
Lyndsay Faye
#31. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking we went to the Moon because we are pioneers, or discoverers, or adventurers. We went to the Moon because it was the militaristically expedient thing to do.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
#32. I'm not a politician. I don't want to be a politician, because politicians do what is politically expedient. I want to do what's right.
Ben Carson
#33. But facts were facts, and people didn't get to turn Amy into everyone's beloved best friend just because it was emotionally expedient.
Gillian Flynn
#34. Wars come and wars go but the world does not change: it will always forget an indebtedness which it thinks it expedient not to remember.
Radclyffe Hall
#35. He had made a series of foolish decisions in his life. He had not planned well. He had not had courage when he needed it. His decisions had been short sighted. The decisions of his peers had been short sighted. These decisions had been foolish and expedient.
Dave Eggers
#36. The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.
Charles Caleb Colton
#37. Accusing a politician of being politically expedient is like accusing water of being wet or circles for being round.
Greg Gutfeld
#38. Of all the tricks played by storytellers on their willing victims, the cheapest is the deception known in English as The End. An ending is an arbitrary thing, an act of cowardice or fatigue, an expedient disguised as an aesthetic choice or, worse, a moral commentary on the finitude of life.
Michael Chabon
#39. It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.
Plato
#40. Some think of Islam as an expedient jobs program that moves the female half of the population out of the way.
William Langewiesche
#41. There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.
Thomas A. Edison
#42. Freedom of discussion is in England little else than the right to write or say anything which a jury of twelve shopkeepers think it expedient should be said or written.
A. V. Dicey
#43. The middle years - the eighteen-seventies, 'eighties, 'nineties - were a time of moral bankruptcy when men stole millions by a stroke of the pen or by the simple expedient of printing tons of worthless paper.
Frank Yerby
#44. In every treaty, insert a clause which can easily be violated, so that the entire agreement can be broken in case the interests of the State make it expedient to do so.
Louis XIV
#45. Make your decision for what is right not expedient, and wash your mind of all compromise.
B. J. Palmer
#46. The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.
Alexander Hamilton
#47. All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided.
Maya Angelou
#48. I found it harder and harder to stick to what was right, when what was expedient made better sense.
Charlaine Harris
#49. People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#50. It is provided by the Constitution that the President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.
Chester A. Arthur
#51. The fear of death which is imprinted in men is at the same time a great expedient Heaven employs to hinder them from many misdeeds: many things are left undone for fear of imperiling one's life or health.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
#52. Human beings have a remarkable talent for persuading themselves of the authenticity and nobility of aspects of themselves which are in fact expedient, spurious, base.
Salman Rushdie
#53. Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author's control.
C.S. Lewis
#54. The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
William James
#55. Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way.
Abraham Lincoln
#56. Purest religion is highest expediency. Many things are lawful but they are not all expedient.
Mahatma Gandhi
#58. If you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, your life will be safe, expedient and thin.
Katharine Butler Hathaway
#59. This new approach, it seemed, was not to be made so publicly, not to be exposed to the expedient treason of little devious minds far removed from the battlefields on which honest men met, and contended, and killed one another without malice.
Edith Pargeter
#60. It is not expedient or wise to examine our friends too closely; few persons are raised in our esteem by a close examination.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld
#61. And when a leader embraces their responsibility to care for people instead of caring for numbers, then people will follow, solve problems and see to it that that leader's vision comes to life the right way, a stable way and not the expedient way.
Simon Sinek
#62. Perhaps, in retrospect, there would be little motivation even for malevolent extraterrestrials to attack the Earth; perhaps, after a preliminary survey, they might decide it is more expedient just to be patient for a little while and wait for us to self-destruct.
Carl Sagan
#63. Why do we have a brain in the first place? Not to write books, articles, or plays; not to do science or play music. Brains develop because they are an expedient way of managing life in a body.
Antonio Damasio
#64. Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil
Robert D. Hales
#66. All of you knowing now, Tthat the Buddhas, the Teachers of the Ages, In accord with what is peculiarly appropriate, have recourse to expedient devices, Need have no more doubts or uncertainties. Your hearts shall give rise to great joy, Since you know that you yourselves Shall become Buddhas.
Gautama Buddha
#67. It is expedient for the victor to wish for peace restored; for the vanquished it is necessary.
Seneca The Younger
#68. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to perserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
Aldo Leopold
#69. Nothing but the right can ever be expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a great good to a less.
Richard Whately
#70. We no longer admit any other truth than that which is expedient; for there is no worse error than the truth that may weaken the arm that is fighting.
Andre Gide
#71. There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve if the world were honest; yet even then it would prove expedient. For, in order to attain any degree of deference, it seems necessary that people should imagine you have more accomplishments than you discover.
William Shenstone
#72. A Venezuelan dictator once decided to stop leprosy. He saw that most lepers in his country were also beggars. By the simple expedient of collecting and destroying all the beggars in Venezuela an end was put to leprosy in that country.
L. Ron Hubbard
#73. [M]y wish is, that the Convention may adopt no temporizing expedient, but probe the defects of the Constitution [i.e., the Articles of Confederation] to the bottom, and provide radical cures.
George Washington
#74. I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.
Jonathan Swift
#75. As so often happens in politics, what appears to be politically expedient for those in power rarely overlaps with the public interest. The lesser evils of the regime become entrenched, while the greater good is never realized.
Jason Stearns
#76. Therefore it is most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself.
William Shakespeare
#77. The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
Richard Dawkins
#78. It is expedient to have acquaintance with those who have looked into the world, who know men, understand business, and can give you good intelligence and good advice when they are wanted.
George Horne
#79. I meant that in politics there may be times when it's expedient to leave someone in power who's become incompetent, because in a web like that, there are ways to circumvent the damage that person might do. But
Kate Elliott
#80. Without question, the true goal of some in Congress is to create a system of socialized medicine. It's politically expedient to slap a 'patients' rights' label on legislation that simply leads us closer to a complete government takeover of medicine.
Ron Paul
#81. Political correctness is an intellectual sickness. It means lying when telling the truth is not expedient. It is a disgusting habit and yet it is so widespread and so common that it is considered to be normal.
Ali Sina
#82. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
Ambrose Bierce
#83. And is it not ridiculous to think of justice when society greets all violence as a reasonable and expedient necessity, and any act of mercy - an acquittal, for instance - provokes a great outburst of dissatisfied, vengeful feeling?
Anton Chekhov
#85. Even the purest and most high-minded scientist finds it expedient sometimes to assault the fortress of truth with the blunt weapon of trail and error. sometimes it works beautifully.
Isaac Asimov
#86. Whenever government assumed responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of citizens, the costs of government rise beyond the point where it is politically expedient to cover them by direct tax levies.
Leonard Read
#87. An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient.
Jean-Baptiste Say
#88. The answer to one is the answer to all. Government by 'the people' is expedient or it is not. If it is expedient, then obviously all the people must be included.
Carrie Chapman Catt
#89. When men live as if there were no God, it becomes expedient for them that there should be none.
John Tillotson
#90. The most sure, but at the same time the most difficult expedient to mend the morals of the people, is a perfect system of education.
Catherine The Great
#91. In nature we find not only that which is expedient, but also everything which is not so inexpedient as to endanger the existence of the species.
Konrad Lorenz
#92. Dictatorships do cut down on rape, and pillage, not to mention sexual harassment, by the simple expedient of sending people to labour camps for life or cutting off their hands without a trial.
Barbara Amiel
#93. The British Labour movement is today, and for many years has been, working in a narrow circle of strikes that are looked upon, not as an expedient, and not as a means of propaganda, but as an ultimate aim.
Friedrich Engels
#94. He was a consummate politician
which is to say he was given to expedient speech and lacked even a vestigial spine.
Nick Taylor
#96. I believe that cunning is not only morally wrong but also politically expedient, and have therefore always discountenanced its use even from the practical standpoint.
Mahatma Gandhi
#97. My father said, Politics asks the question: Is it expedient? Vanity asks: Is it popular? But conscience asks: Is it right?
Dexter Scott King
#99. One of the reasons I think we are sometimes critical of support for the arts is that art - lyric art in particular - can make us uncomfortably aware that economically expedient answers may not always be true.
Jan Zwicky
#100. Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
James Russell Lowell
