Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another - too often ending in the loss of both.

Edwards frames compromise not as a neutral middle ground but as a trade: giving up one genuine right or good to preserve another. The sting is in the warning that such bargaining often fails even on its own terms—by conceding what should not be conceded, one may weaken one’s position, invite further demands, or lose moral clarity, and thus end up forfeiting both the surrendered good and the one supposedly protected. The aphorism is less an attack on all negotiation than a caution about compromising on essentials: when the stakes involve justice or principle, “pragmatic” concessions can become self-defeating as well as ethically corrosive.