Quotes About Pragmatism

What I've found in being around political people is they're willing to negotiate their ideology somewhere around 5 percent. They believe that's really stepping out. And it's really hard to do business when you only move 5 percent from your ideology.

about Voltaire)...he was generally unbedeviled by any foolish consistency.

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

I'm not interested in 'lovey dovey,' everything is so great in the world. That doesn't interest me at all.

Prophetic pragmatism attempts to keep alive the sense of alternative ways of life and of struggle based on the best of the past. In this sense, the praxis of prophetic pragmatism is tragic action with revolutionary intent, usually reformist consequences and always visionary outlook.

never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.

Why would a person whose notebook aphorisms decry killing and whose personal morality led him to be a vegetarian go to work for the most brutal murderer of the era? Partly this choice reflects Leonardo's pragmatism. In a land where the Medici, Sforzas, and Borgias jostled for power, Leonardo was able to time his patronage affiliations well and know when to move on. But there is more. Even as he remained aloof from most current events, he seemed to be attracted to power.

When Walter and Edwin were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, "How would you summarize your approach?" Edwin replied, "We try to buy stocks cheap." So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

What the pragmatist has his pragmatism for is to be able to say, Here is a definition and it does not differ at all from your confusedly apprehended conception because there is no practical difference.

How such views might steer clear of authoritarian dogmatism, head-in-the-sand private intuition, narrow professional specialization, or extravagantly broad but undependable

If something is too hard, we move on to something else. What could be simpler than that?

His condition shocked her, needless to say, but she had that brand of pragmatism that would find her the first brewing tea after Armageddon, and within an hour she'd taken it in her stride.

As Os Guinness explains, Christianity is not true because it works (pragmatism); it is not true because it feels right (subjectivism); it is not true because it is "my truth" (relativism). It is true because it is anchored in the person of Christ. Furthermore, truth is anything that corresponds to reality.

You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.

You cannot run a business, or anything else, on a theory.

We are pragmatists. We don't stick to any ideology. Does it work? Let's try it, and if it does work, fine, let's continue it. If it doesn't work, toss it out, try another one. We are not enamored with any ideology.

Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

There is this big yawning gap in the middle of British politics, the Conservative and Labour parties have gone to the edges. In this divided, polarised world, the pragmatic centre ground is a bit unloved.

I've always been comfortable thinking things through and doing it, more or less, my way. You can be as creative as you want, but if you're... unwilling to work on the details, to see those put into action, then creativity is just dreams, or worse, hallucinations.

I am not a man who looks for solutions in God or politics. If somebody else wants to do the dirty work and create a better world for us and he can do it, I will accept it.

I do not take things to the heart. I calculate and I do what needs to be done. If I were to start acting emotionally, it would destroy my work.

I'm a pragmatist. I think, as a woman, you have to be more careful. You have to be more communal, you have to say yes to more things than men, you have to worry about things that men don't have to worry about. But once we get enough women into leadership, we can break stereotypes down. If you lead, you get to decide.

People say I'm such a pessimist, but I always was. It never stopped me from doing what I had to do. I would say I'm a realist.