Pragmatically Quotes & Sayings

We read, I think, to repair our solitude, though pragmatically the better we read, the more solitary we become. — Harold Bloom

Hollywood - that's a place where love is viewed both pragmatically and philosophically in the saying, 'Tis better to have loved and divorced than never to have had any publicity at all. — Ava Gardner

We underestimate the power of science, and overestimate the power of personal observation. A peer-reviewed, journal-published, replicated report is worth far more than what you see with your own eyes. Our own eyes can deceive us. People can fool themselves, hallucinate, and even go insane. The controls on publication in major journals are more trustworthy than the very fabric of your brain. If you see with your own eyes that the sky is blue, and Science says it is green, then sir, I advise that you trust in Science.
This is not what most scientists will tell you, of course; but I think it is pragmatically true. Because in real life, what happens is that your eyes have a little malfunction and decide that the sky is green, and science will tell you that the sky is blue. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness. — Dalai Lama XIV

Part of John's meaning of the cross, then, is that it is not only what happens, purely pragmatically, when God's kingdom challenges Caesar's kingdom. It is also what has to happen if God's kingdom, which makes its way (as Jesus insists) by nonviolence rather than by violence, is to win the day. — N. T. Wright

As my son Frankie put it, Humanism has changed the Twenty-third Psalm: They began - I am my shepherd. Then - Sheep are my shepherd. Then - Everything is my shepherd. Finally - Nothing is my shepherd. — Francis A. Schaeffer

Pragmatically speaking, I like the fact that the masses vote, abuse drugs, believe in Jesus, follow sports, and worship a flag. They are tools of social engineering that keep the many-too-many sedate, pacified, and out of many people's hair (chiefly, my own). — Matt Paradise

Our greatest challenge today ... is to couple conviction with doubt. By conviction, I mean some pragmatically developed faith, trust, or centeredness; and by doubt I mean openness to the ongoing changeability, mystery, and fallibility of the conviction. — Kirk J. Schneider

Technologically, modern man does everything he can do-he functions on this single boundary principle. Modern man, seeing himself as autonomous, with no personal-infinite God who has spoken, has no adequate universal to supply an adequate second boundary condition; and man being fallen is not only finite, but sinful. Thus man's pragmatically made choices have no reference point beyond human egotism. It is dog eat dog, man eat man, man eat nature. — Francis Schaeffer

You're beginning to get the idea, Clark. We could have changed the world ... now ... look at us ... I've become a political liability ... and ... you ... you're a joke. I want you to remember, Clark ... in all the years to come ... in your most private moments ... I want you to remember ... my hand ... at your throat ... I want ... you to remember ... the one man who beat you. — Frank Miller

I do not wish to talk about myself because I hold very deeply the belief that what is important is the work, not the person. — Remedios Varo

Praise or damn as you please, but do so rather flatly, pragmatically, with cunning attention to annoying or gratifying details. Be yourself. Be unique. Be a good editor. The Universe needs more good editors, God knows. — Kurt Vonnegut

I have always liked people who can't adapt themselves to life pragmatically. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I wonder which YOU are. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles! — Bill Watterson

A materialist feminist approach to women's oppression destroys the idea that women are a 'natural group' ... What the analysis accomplishes on the level of ideas, practice makes actual at the level of facts: by its very existence, lesbian society destroys the artificial (social) fact constituting women as a 'natural group.' A lesbian society pragmatically reveals that the division from men of which women have been the object is a political one ... — Monique Wittig

I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable. — Massimo Vignelli

I want my fans to love themselves. It's almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly. — Lady Gaga

I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I'm for that. Where the government is necessary, I'm for that. I'm deeply suspicious of somebody who says, 'I'm in favor of privatization,' or, 'I'm deeply in favor of public ownership.' I'm in favor of whatever works in the particular case. — John Kenneth Galbraith

This year in school she read Romeo and Juliet, and she told me pragmatically that Romeo was a wimp. He should have just taken Juliet and run away with her, swallowed his pride and worked at some medieval McDonald's. What about the poetry, I asked her. What about the tragedy? And Rebecca told me that that's all very well and good but it isn't the way things happen in real life. — Jodi Picoult

Would the world be a better place if all drugs were legalized tomorrow? Absolutely. But pragmatically speaking, you're not going to go from the criminalization of all drugs to the legalization of drugs overnight. — Gary Johnson

You might say that science operates pragmatically and religion by divine guidance. If valid, they would reach the same conclusions but science would take a lot longer. — Peace Pilgrim

Culture has little to do with how refined a man's intellect is; it rather depends on the refinement of his emotions. — Raheel Farooq

She speculates for the first time on what Melanie could have been, could have become, if she'd lived before the Breakdown. If she'd never been bitten and infected. Because this is a child here, whatever else she is, and she's never lost that sense of her own centre before except when she smelled blood and turned, briefly into an animal. And look at how pragmatically, how ruthlessly, she's coped with that. But Justineau only pursues this train of thought for a moment. When Melanie starts to speak, she commands their full attention. "I — M.R. Carey

Pragmatically, aesthetic value can be recognized or experienced, but it cannot be conveyed to those who are incapable of grasping its sensations and perceptions. To quarrel on its behalf is always a blunder. — Harold Bloom