“If you start off with a willingness to compromise, you’ve given up, you’ve lost. Even though the final result, in most cases, is a compromise, it’s a compromise that was reached between two sides, each of which was adamant, and was not going to give in. It was once said in a Sierra Club publication that the only way we’d ever accomplished anything was through compromise and accommodation. That’s exactly the opposite of the truth. The only way the Sierra Club ever won anything was by refusing to compromise — Grand Canyon dams, Redwood National Park — you can go right back through the whole list. When we compromised, we lost.”
— Martin Litton, to a meeting of Colorado River guides in Flagstaff, AZ, 1985
