The pressure to compromise almost never arrives as a dramatic choice.

It comes as a small figure. Something to hold the file at the top. A percentage to make the contract move. Everyone does it, they say, and mostly they are telling the truth.

The cost is not only moral. Once you have paid, you are known as a person who pays, and that price is never asked only once.

Some doors will close, and you will watch someone less careful walk through them. Say it plainly, without a sermon: I do not do that. Then be good enough that people find another way to work with you.