Quotes About Pragmatism

We may be heartened by our sojourns on Sinai, but no man may live his life in the clouds. And what does pragmatism mean if not just this? We can only, as James told us again and again, understand the collective and distributive by living. Life is the true revealer: I can never understand the whole by reason, only when the heart-beat of the whole throbs through me as the pulse of my own being.

Between the poles of individualism and community, freedom and constraint, pragmatism emerged as a genuinely American philosophical outlook—and as a way of life.

I'm not the white-picket-fence kind of guy. So don't go building castles in the air. You'll get trapped in the rubble when they collapse.

Pragmatism reflects a society that has no time to remember and meditate.

We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

1. Socialization of instincts is the bionics of nature's pragmatism. Art Nouveau of the universe of thinking. 2. A woman in a relationship subconsciously continues to play with childish voodoo dolls of manipulation with the help of guilt. Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

The socialization of instincts is the bionics of nature's pragmatism. Art Nouveau of the universe of thinking.

We are a broken nature, we are divorced from the laws of nature from the romantic philosophy of being, but we preserve the pragmatism of the Stone Age. This is what connects us to the natural world. Instincts are our cradle of nature. On a cognitive level, thought development is how human evolution develops.

A true citizen must be a realist both at heart and mind.

I would be a socialist if I thought it would work.

Long before pragmatism was developed into a full-blown American philosophy (see chapter 8), it had already been formulated and practiced by evangelical leaders.

You wish to sail a ship up stream by lighting a fire under its decks, I have no time for such nonsense.

Over time political pragmatism could trump ideology helped by a growing civil society that will begin to produce a new cadre of pragmatic, entrepreneurial and social leaders—something that authoritarian regimes consistently stifled.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

practically

Where the average person appreciates the beauty of surf and waves, Gus, an engineer, sees only practical design. Gravity, plus ocean current, plus wind. Poetry to the common man is a unicorn viewed from the corner of an eye—an unexpected glimpse of the intangible. To an engineer, only the ingenuity of pragmatic solutions is poetic. Function over form. It's not a question of optimism or pessimism, a glass half full or half empty. To an engineer, the glass is simply too big.

Stay a dreamer, and you'll never have your dream; get down in the nitty-gritty, and when you get your dream you see what horseshit it was in the first place.

Politics is the art of the possible.

Politics is the art of the next best.

Politics is the art of the possible. (originally, "Die Politik ist die Lehre von Möglichen.")

The ends justify the means.

One calling for optimism, pragmatism, and a belief that all problems might be solved, with enough courage, determination, good

Op die manier is de elektrische stoel uitgevonden. Uitgedokterd door Edison die de gevaren van de wisselstroom wilde tonen en zijn idee vervolgens verkocht aan de Sing-sing-gevangenis waarop het tot op de dag van vandaag wordt gebruikt. Heerlijk, vind je niet? Als de wereld niet zo prachtig was, zouden we allemaal nog cynici worden.