---
title: "At times it may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but… — Margaret Mead Quote #8 | QuotesBy.net"
description: "At times it may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good. — a quote by Margaret Mead."
image: "https://quotesby.net/wp-content/themes/quotesby-editorial/assets/og-default.png"
---

> # At times it may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

[Margaret Mead](https://quotesby.net/Margaret-Mead)\#8

[Truth](https://quotesby.net/Margaret-Mead/truth/)[Choice](https://quotesby.net/topics/choice/)[Compromise](https://quotesby.net/topics/compromise/)[Ethics](https://quotesby.net/topics/ethics/)[Morality](https://quotesby.net/topics/morality/)

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## About this quote

What does it mean?Pragmatism requires accepting less bad options without pretending they are good.In plain termsAccept necessary bad choices but don't call them good.What can you take from it?Do not mask compromises as virtues.

### Where it applies

- politics
- leadership
- ethical dilemmas

### Putting it to work

- Evaluate choices honestly

### Questions to consider

- When is compromise necessary?
- How do you judge necessary evils?

### Another view

Sometimes labels are blurred in practice.

## More from Margaret Mead

1. > Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to gues…

[Permalink to quote \#7](https://quotesby.net/Margaret-Mead/7/ "Permalink to quote 7")
2. > Be lazy, go crazy.

[Permalink to quote \#9](https://quotesby.net/Margaret-Mead/9/ "Permalink to quote 9")
3. > Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

[Permalink to quote \#6](https://quotesby.net/Margaret-Mead/6/ "Permalink to quote 6")

## Related quotes

1. > The highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story comes to be finished.

[Arthur Conan Doyle](https://quotesby.net/Arthur-Conan-Doyle)[Arthur Conan Doyle quote \#1](https://quotesby.net/Arthur-Conan-Doyle/1/ "Permalink to quote 1")
2. > There are worse things than a lie... I have found... that it may be well to choose one sin in order that another may be shunned.

[Anthony Trollope](https://quotesby.net/Anthony-Trollope)[Anthony Trollope quote \#22](https://quotesby.net/Anthony-Trollope/22/ "Permalink to quote 22")
3. > \[An attorney\] can find it consistent with his dignity to turn wrong into right, and right into wrong, to abet a lie, nay to create, disseminate, and with all t…

[Anthony Trollope](https://quotesby.net/Anthony-Trollope)[Anthony Trollope quote \#1](https://quotesby.net/Anthony-Trollope/1/ "Permalink to quote 1")

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