pick one's battles
(Redirected from pick your battles)
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Verb
[edit]pick one's battles (third-person singular simple present picks one's battles, present participle picking one's battles, simple past and past participle picked one's battles)
- (idiomatic) To involve oneself in disputes only if one is likely to win.
- (idiomatic) To take a stand for a cause only if it is truly important enough to be worth the costs.
- 2010 May 25, Lynn Hirschberg, quoting M.I.A., “M.I.A.’s Agitprop Pop”, in The New York Times[1], →ISSN:
- “ […] Jimmy Iovine, who runs Interscope, my record company, said, ‘Pick your battles carefully — don’t put your life at risk,’ but at the end of the day, I don’t see how you can shut up and just enjoy success when other people who don’t have the fame or the luxury to rent security guards are suffering. […] ”
Translations
[edit]to only involve oneself in disputes that one is likely to win
|
to only take a stand for a cause that is truly important to one