Pragmatic Quotes - Page 3

• The 'natural' is not necessarily a 'human' value. Humanity has begun to transcend nature: we can no longer justify the maintenance of a discriminatory sex class system on grounds of its origins in nature. Indeed, for pragmatic reasons alone it is beginning to look as if we must get rid of it.

  Shulamith Firestone

  Sex, Class, Humanity

  "Shulamith Firestone obituary" by Julie Bindel, www.theguardian.com. September 6, 2012.

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• No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels. Broadly, we can afford to sink those sorts of knowledge which continue to be true regardless of changes in the environment, but we must maintain in an accessible place all those controls of behavior which must be modified for every instance. The economics of the system, in fact, pushes organisms toward sinking into the unconscious those generalities of relationship which remain permanently true and toward keeping within the conscious the pragmatic of particular instances.

  Gregory Bateson

  Levels, Matter, Facts

  "Steps to an Ecology of Mind". Book by Gregory Bateson, 1972.

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• What I would like to vote for is a candidate that is socially liberal, a fiscal conservative, broadly libertarian with a small l but sensible and pragmatic and with a chance of winning. Thats more or less the empty set.

  Tyler Cowen

  Winning, Libertarian, Chance

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• Even if matter could do every outward thing that God does, the idea of it would not work as satisfactorily, because the chief callfor a God on modern men's part is for a being who will inwardly recognize them and judge them sympathetically. Matter disappoints this craving of our ego, so God remains for most men the truer hypothesis, and indeed remains so for definite pragmatic reasons.

  William James

  Men, Ideas, Judging

  William James (2015). “The Meaning of Truth: Human Understanding”, p.72, 谷月社

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• Only the more uncompromising of the mystics still seek for knowledge in a silent land of absolute intuition, where the intellect finally lays down its conceptual tools, and rests from its pragmatic labors, while its works do not follow it, but are simply forgotten, and are as if they never had been.

  Josiah Royce

  Land, Intuition, Tools

  Josiah Royce (1913). “The Problem of Christianity: The real world and the Christian ideas”

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• Why, if we are as pragmatic as we claim, don't we begin to ask ourselves seriously: Where does our real future lie?

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Real, Lying, Buddhism

  Sogyal Rinpoche (2009). “Glimpse After Glimpse: Daily Reflections on Living and Dying”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• What kind of world would we create if three times a day we activated our compassion and reason as we sat down to eat, if we had the moral imagination and the pragmatic will to change our most fundamental act of consumption?

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Compassion, Imagination, Three

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• We possess the Canon because we are mortal and also rather belated. There is only so much time, and time must have a stop, while there is more to read than there ever was before. From the Yahwist and Homer to Freud, Kafka, and Beckett is a journey of nearly three millennia. Since that voyage goes past harbors as infinite as Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, all of whom amply compensate a lifetime's rereadings, we are in the pragmatic dilemma of excluding something else each time we read or reread extensively.

  Harold Bloom

  Past, Journey, Three

  Harold Bloom (2014). “The Western Canon”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The theory of the method of knowing which is advanced in these pages may be termed pragmatic. ... Only that which has been organized into our disposition so as to enable us to adapt the environment to our needs and adapt our aims and desires to the situation in which we live is really knowledge.

  John Dewey

  Knowledge, Science, Knowing

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.313, Courier Corporation

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• As an actress, the joy of being able to play the three sides of any woman, which are the glamour, the pragmatic and the one not to be messed with, is pretty glorious.

  Victoria Smurfit

  Play, Joy, Three

  "Victoria Smurfit Talks DRACULA, How She Joined the Series, and Lady Jayne’s Dark Side". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. November 15, 2013.

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• As Marcus considered various ways to open the subject of Daisy, Swift surprised him with a blunt statement. “My lord, there is something I would like to discuss with you.” Marcus adopted a pleasantly encouraging expression. “Very well.” “It turns out that Miss Bowman and I have reached an…understanding. After considering the logical advantages on both sides, I have made a sensible and pragmatic decision that we should—” “How long have you been in love with her?” Marcus interrupted, inwardly amused. Swift let out a tense sigh. “Years,” he admitted.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Love, Expression, Years

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• In a president, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant... He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever... You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you cant buy courage and decency, you cant rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those things with him. He needs to have, in that much maligned word, but a good one nonetheless, a vision of the future he wishes to create.. But a vision is worth little if a president doesn't have the character - the courage and heart - to see it through.

  Peggy Noonan

  Courage, Strong, Clever

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• I think ex-Soviet or Russian-Jewish women are tougher and that comes through. And if they are more pragmatic than the men, it's because they are obliged to be. They have all the female responsibilities and all the male responsibilities.

  David Bezmozgis

  Responsibility, Thinking, Men

  Interview with Ratik Asokan, logger.believermag.com. September 23, 2014.

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• I have no Napoleonic dream. I'm just hard-working and pragmatic.

  Roman Abramovich

  Motivational, Dream, Perseverance

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• In my experience of women, women have a greater capacity. Maybe women, even very pragmatic ones, are less guarded about showing emotions.

  David Bezmozgis

  Emotion, Capacity, Men Women

  Interview with Ratik Asokan, logger.believermag.com. September 23, 2014.

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• I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic.

  Camille Paglia

  Christian, Philosophy, Italian

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• I'm not the kind of guy to talk about angels: I'm a very pragmatic kind of guy.

  Chris Isaak

  Angel, Guy, Kind

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• An idealistic lover is a blind lover, and therefore a true lover; a pragmatic lover is a sighted lover, and therefore a false lover.

  Kedar Joshi

  Love, Blind, Idealistic

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• I am not against being pragmatic, because it is pragmatic to make a good pass, not a bad one. If I have the ball, what do I do with it? Could anybody argue that a bad solution like just kicking it away is pragmatic just because, sometimes, it works by accident?

  Arsene Wenger

  Kicking It, Balls, Arguing

  "10 ways innovator Arsene Wenger has changed English football forever" by James McNicholas, www.mirror.co.uk. March 22, 2014.

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• My mum is a bit unconventional; she's outdoorsy and has more of an emotional intelligence, whereas my dad is pragmatic; he's a businessman.

  Tamsin Egerton

  Dad, Emotional, Unconventional

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• The Korean economic miracle was the result of a clever and pragmatic mixture of market incentives and state direction.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Clever, Miracle, Incentives

  Ha-Joon Chang (2007). “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism”, Bloomsbury Press

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• For me, dreaming is simply being pragmatic.

  Shimon Peres

  Dream

  "Talking Prayer With Shimon Peres at the Israeli Presidential Conference" by Eitan Press, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 26, 2012.

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• The North American intellectual tradition began, I maintain, in the encounter of British Romanticism with assertive, pragmatic North American English - the Protestant plain style in both the U.S. and Canada, with its no-nonsense Scottish immigrants.

  Camille Paglia

  Intellectual, Style, Encounters

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• Scientific method is the way to truth, but it affords, even in
  principle, no unique definition of truth. Any so-called pragmatic
  definition of truth is doomed to failure equally.

  Willard Van Orman Quine

  Truth, Science, Unique

  Willard Van Orman Quine, Patricia Smith Churchland, Dagfinn Follesdal (2013). “Word and Object”, p.21, MIT Press

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• Your thoughts create reality. The most pragmatic way to create world peace is to use your power of visualization. Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace, Imagine Peace. Your thoughts will soon cover the planet. The most important thing is to believe in your power. It works.

  Yoko Ono

  Believe, Reality, Thinking

  Source: www.yashawallin.com

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