Opportunism Quotes & Sayings

You cannot win the war. You will seem to win but it will be an illusion. You will win the battles, kill billions, rape Worlds, take slaves, and destroy ships and weapons. But after that you will be forced to hold the subjection. Your numbers will not be expendable. You will be spread thin, exposed to other cultures that will influence you, change you. You will lose skirmishes, and in the end you will be forced back. Then will come a loss of old ethics, corruption and opportunism will replace your honor and you will know unspeakable shame and dishonor... your culture will soon be weltering back into a barbarism and disorganization which in its corruption and despair will be nothing like the proud tribal primitive life of its first barbarism. You will be aware of the difference and unable to return. — Charles V. De Vet

Altruism is a hard master, but so is opportunism. — Mignon McLaughlin

Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung — Abraham Lincoln

Disraeli was now at the height of his fame and popularity. He still had his enemies ... But the people as a whole now admired and respected him deeply ... His unscrupulous past and cynical opportunism were being largely forgotten or forgiven. He was gradually becoming recognized not only as the prophet of a new Conservatism, at once compassionate at home and positive abroad, but as a great statesmen whom the Queen did well to honour. Power had brought responsibility. By 1878 the transformation in public attitudes towards Disraeli was complete. — Christopher Hibbert

What is evil? What is - where does the evil come from that lies behind someone like Saddam Hussein, or Radovan Karadzic, or General Claude Raymond in Haiti. As I say, I've tended to find these people - I mean, Saddam, I've never met or interviewed - but these other people to be rather disappointing. Their political goals were mundane. What they had working for them was opportunism, was very often cleverness and was ruthlessness. — Mark Danner

This sutura gives example about the purpose of relationship. A son of enemy who wants to uproot his own father, should be treated as friend and shold be protected. This may be called opportunism but is and should be necessary part of polity and statesmanship. Moreover, if a father is not aan upright man to have friendship with his sone can be a meritorious peson. So it is better to protecdt him. — Chanakya

It's true that in Cuba there are double standards, there's opportunism, and there is a lack of freedom in some ways. — Fernando Perez

Ah, reality TV: where opportunists delight in exposing opportunism! It's kind of like the indie music scene. — Diablo Cody

15 "probable illnesses" that are afflicting the curial body, including those of feeling "indispensable;" of excessive work habits and not enough time to rest and recharge before the Lord; of a spiritual hardening of hearts; of over-planning and not leaving room for the Holy Spirit to function; of a lack of collaboration; of living autonomously while forgetting salvation history; of vanity; of living a double life; of the "terrorism of gossip"; of egotistic opportunism; of indifference; of pessimism; of materialism; of cliquishness; and of the allures of power. — Anonymous

Opportunism has suffered the emasculation of being converted into a principle; — Jan-Werner Muller

There are no rules or formulas for success. You just have to live it and do it. knowing this gives us enormous freedom to experiment toward what we want. Believe me, it's a crazy, complicated journey. It's trial and error. It's opportunism. It's quite literally, "Let's try lots of this stuff and see how it works." — Anita Roddick

Finally, I had held up examples of Goldhagen's inflammatory language and suggested that he had missed the essence of what Primo Levi once called the 'grey zone' of human affairs, described by the historian Christopher Browning as that foggy universe of mixed motives, conflicting emotions, personal priorities, reluctant choices, opportunism and accomodation, all wedded, when convenient, to self-deception and denial. I thought that by marshalling his research into an overly narrow narrative, painted without nuance in black and white, the author had missed the human complexity and the ordinariness of racism. — Erna Paris

There's been a certain amount of opportunism in the wake of the Paris attacks in 2015, when there was almost a reflexive assumption that, "Oh, if only we didn't have strong encryption out there, these attacks could have been prevented." But, as more evidence has come out - and we don't know all the facts yet - we're seeing very little to support the idea that the Paris attackers were making any kind of use of encryption. — Matt Blaze

this sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present may be 'honestly' meant, but it is and remains opportunism, and 'honest' opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all — Frederick Engels

There was polite laughter in the courtroom. Bosch noticed that the attorneys
prosecution and defense
dutifully joined in, a couple of them overdoing it. It had been his experience that while in open court a judge could not possibly tell a joke that the lawyers did not laugh at. — Michael Connelly

Counterfeit tolerance includes the opportunism of one who seeks, or accepts, tolerance for himself, as a minority, but who would deny it to others if ever he should be in a position to grant it. — Carl Joachim Friedrich

The rebel, dismissed as impractical and zealous, is chronically misunderstood. Those cursed with timidity, fear, or blindness and those who are slaves to opportunism call for moderation and patience. They distort the language of religion, spirituality, compromise, generosity, and compassion to justify cooperation with systems of power that are bent on our destruction. The rebel is deaf to these critiques. The rebel hears only his or her inner voice, which demands steadfast defiance. Self-promotion, positions of influence, the adulation of the public, and the awards and prominent positions that come with bowing before authority mean nothing to the rebel, who understands that virtue is not rewarded. The rebel expects nothing and gets nothing. But for the rebel, to refuse to struggle, to refuse to rebel, is to commit spiritual and moral suicide. — Chris Hedges

If to "aestheticize" is to glide across brutality and cruelty, treat them merely as dramatic occasions for the artist rather than structures of power to be revealed and dismantled - much hangs on the words "merely" and "rather than." Opportunism isn't the same as committed attention. But we can also define the "aesthetic" not as a privileged and sequestered rendering of human suffering, but as news of an awareness, a resistance, that totalizing systems want to quell: art reaching into us for what's still passionate, still unintimidated, still unquenched. — Adrienne Rich

the greatest danger to America's future came from self-serving opportunism masquerading as patriotism. At — Nathaniel Philbrick

The whole struggle of our Party (and of the working class movement in Europe generally) must be directed against opportunism. The latter is not a current of opinion, not a tendency; it (opportunism) has now become the organised tool of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement. — Vladimir Lenin

Delhi is not just a national capital, it is one of the political ultimates, one of the prime movers. It was born to power, war and glory. It rose to greatness not because holy men saw visions there but because it commanded the strategic routes from the northwest, where the conquerors came from, into the rich flatlands of the Ganges delta. Delhi is a soldiers' town, a politicians' town, journalists', diplomats' town. It is Asia's Washington, though not so picturesque, and lives by ambition, rivalry and opportunism. — Jan Morris

I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart. — Margaret Chase Smith

Over and over again in the study of the history of life it appears that what can happen does happen. There is little suggestion that what occurs must occur, that it was fated or that it follows some fixed plan, except simply as the expansion of life follows the opportunities that are presented. In this sense, an outstanding characteristic of evolution is its opportunism.["Meaning of Evolution," 1949, p. 160.] — George Gaylord Simpson

As Hans Bernd Gisevius, a civil servant under Hitler and a member of the German Resistance, puts it: One of the vital lessons that we must learn from the German disaster is the ease with which a people can be sucked down into the morass of inaction; let them as individuals fall prey to overcleverness, opportunism, or cowardliness and they are irrevocably lost. — Philip Ball

[On Richard M. Nixon:] The Republican nominee would be far worse than another Eisenhower - he is Tricky Dicky of the first magnitude. His entire record is one of opportunism. I cannot feel that there is the remotest sincerity in him, and that clearly he would be the tool of the highest bidder, which is always 'big business. — Marguerite Rawalt

He had learned the rare secret that you must take happiness when you find it - that there is no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more convenient season, because it will not be there then. — L.M. Montgomery

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. The power struggle permeates the training, education and disciplining of the orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community inevitably much face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic. — Frank Herbert

Opportunism is self interest seeking with guile often involving subtle forms of deceit, especially calculated efforts to mislead, distort, disguise, obfuscate, or otherwise confuse. This vastly complicates the problems of economic organisation. Plainly if it were not for opportunism all behaviour could be rule governed — Oliver E. Williamson

The battle over genetically modified crops is rife with business interests and political opportunism. When GMOs were first produced in laboratories around the world, they were rightly heralded as a tremendous leap forward in our ability to supplement nature by providing high-nutrient foods. — Richard J. Roberts

The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles. — Benjamin Cardozo

all this immorality and opportunism, this was what characterised them, not altruism, as the stories they had spun would have you believe. But then, this is a world whose running fuel is anecdotes and stories, he reminds himself. — Neel Mukherjee

In our timidity and our shoddy opportunism we are always stirred when a man appears on the horizon willing to stake his all on a conviction. — Clyde S. Kilby

It is not bad that the main beneficiaries of freedom criticize open societies, where there is much that can be criticized. It is bad if they do so by taking the side of those who seek to destroy these open societies, replacing them with authoritarian regimes, as in Venezuela or Cuba. When many artists and intellectuals betray democratic ideals, they are not betraying abstract principles, but rather the thousands and millions of flesh-and-blood people who, under dictatorships, resist and fight to gain freedom. But the saddest thing is that this betrayal of the victims does not come from principles and convictions but rather from professional opportunism and posturing, gestures and actions adapted to circumstance. Many artists and intellectuals in our times have become very cheap. — Mario Vargas-Llosa

The preservation of friendship is seen as opportunism. You are required to be in one camp or the other. You are enjoined to cut your heartstrings if they extend across the barricade. — Jean Cocteau

A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery. — Vladimir Lenin

I believe businesses don't grow or develop in terms of a blueprint. There is a huge element of opportunism involved. — Christoffel Wiese

At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody. — Arundhati Roy

This is Rome. Treachery and opportunism and backstabbing run in her veins like lifeblood, and if you've never had to live your life constantly looking over your shoulder, then you have no idea how dangerous it can be. — Lesley Livingston

The four stages of acceptance:
1. This is worthless nonsense.
2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view.
3. This is true, but quite unimportant.
4. I always said so."

(Review of The Truth About Death, in: Journal of Genetics 1963, Vol. 58, p.464) — J.B.S. Haldane

The minute I was bored with a book or a subject I moved to another one, instead of giving up on reading altogether - when you are limited to the school material and you get bored, you have a tendency to give up and do nothing or play hooky out of discouragement.
The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than with the act of reading. So the number of the pages absorbed could grow faster than otherwise. And you find gold, so to speak, effortlessly, just as in rational but undirected trial-and-error-based research. It is exactly like options, trial and error, not getting stuck, bifurcating when necessary but keeping a sense of broad freedom and opportunism.
Trial and error is freedom. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The plan itself is opportunism. There is no plan before that. — Warren Buffett

Nowhere has truth such a short life as in Sicily; a fact has scarcely happened five minutes before its genuine kernel has vanished, been camouflaged, embellished, disfigured, squashed, annihilated by imagination and self interest; shame, fear, generosity, malice, opportunism, charity, all the passions, good as well as evil, fling themselves onto the fact and tear it to pieces; very soon it has vanished altogether. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

If there is a trait which does characterize leaders it is opportunism. Successful people are very often those who steadfastly refuse to be daunted by disadvantage and have the ability to turn disadvantage to good effect. They are people who seize opportunity and take risks. Leadership then seems to be a matter of personality and character. — John Viney

An old Russian proverb . . . "Where hangs the smoke of hate burns a fiercer fire called fear."
The trick . . . was to keep that fire alive, but to know at the same time it might consume you also. Then the truck was to make the fear invisible in the smokes of hatred. Having accomplished that, you would own men's souls and your power would be absolute, so long as you never allowed men to see that their hate was but fear, and so long as you, afraid, knowing it, hence more shrewd and cautious than the rest, did not become a corpse at the hands of the hating fearful.
There, in a nutshell, was the recipe for dictatorship. Over the proletariat. Over the godly believers. Over the heathen. Over all men, even those who imagined they were free and yet could be made to hate.
Frighten; then furnish the whipping boys. Then seize. — Philip Wylie

One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship. — Milton Friedman

He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled.
Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees ... — Megan Whalen Turner

I don't know what sort of world she will live in and I have no fixed opinions concerning how she should live in it. I only know that if she does not come to value what is true above what is useful, it will make little difference whether she lives at all. — Cormac McCarthy

Ah yes, liberal democrats unified as ever in opportunism and in error. — Tony Blair