Quotes About Pragmatism

In America, where hostility to big government is central to the national character, the case for statism must be made in terms of "pragmatism" and decency. In other words, our fascism must be nice and for your own good.

I've managed to stay alive out here in the Ruin because I'm a realist. I allow the truth to be the truth, no matter how much I might want it to be something else.

But it was useless to try to explain him in terms of Good and Evil. They were no more than baroque abstractions. Good Business and Bad Business were the elements of the new theology. Dimitrios was not evil. He was logical and consistent; as logical and consistent in the European jungle as the poison gas called Lewisite and the shattered bodies of children killed in the bombardment of an open town.

Decades of scrupulous and unrelenting pragmatism carried us here. The minimum necessary for survival now counts as madness. The courses of action still deemed practical will usher us straight down the path that leads to our own deaths.

I refuse to use terms like 'optimist' or 'pessimist' and instead prefer 'realist.'

I think, going forward, we need to be much more modest on expectations with regard to China growth: That's just being realistic.

Politics have no relation to morals.

I don't believe in ideology in international relations.

In international relations, you don't base your work on hope.

It was of course Jefferson's gift at one time or another to put with eloquence the "right" answer to every moral question. In practice, however, he seldom deviated from an opportunistic course, calculated to bring him power.

The left no longer stands for common sense, as it did in the days of Tom Paine.

I abhor anything that constitutes torture. Water-boarding, it's perfectly clear to me it is torture. I never supported extraordinary rendition to torture, always said that Guantanamo should be closed. There is no clash of ideals and pragmatism there.

On Gandhi: Don't ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground.

I am very practical, but at the same time, I am a dreamer and romantic.

You are young, Father Iron Horse, and you have a young man's vices. Certainty. Shortsightedness. Contempt for pragmatism.

We are all trained by today's colleges never to take a firm stand on any subject: to be pragmatists, ready to compromise with anyone on anything. Philosophy and morality, however, do not work by compromise. Just as a healthy body cannot compromise with poison, so too a good man cannot compromise with evil ideas. In such a set up, an evil philosophy, like poison, always wins. The good can win only by being consistent. If it is not, then the evil is given the means to win every time.

He slipped the sketch to the bottom of the pile. "Architecture is primarily a utilitarian conception, and the problem is to elevate the principle of pragmatism into the realm of esthetic abstraction. All else is nonsense.

How useful is it to describe the world as it should be when efforts to achieve that world are bound to fall short?

It's not always about being satisfied, sometimes it's about being practical

it's better to strive for a good solution and avoid disaster rather than trying to find the best solution

A professional soldier must also be a realist. There is a time to attack, and a time to retreat. There is a time to press for victory, and a time to accept its impossibility. Only fools and tyrants deny the inevitable.

I believe politicians should always remain realistic.

I believe zealously in conservative ideals, but Nebraskans want people who get things done, not just those who scream at each other.

Ideology never put food on my table.