Pragmatism Quotes

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  • WIth both trepidation and relief, I abandoned pragmatism in favor of magnetism.

    Tama J. Kieves (2004). “This Time I Dance!: Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love”, Tarcher
  • There are partnerships based on principle. There are partnerships based on pragmatism. And fortunately, when it comes to Indo-American relations, both concentrations find a new robust phase of relationship, a multi-fasted relationship which I believe exists in the interests of both our countries.

    "Dr Manmohan Singh's interview with Charlie Rose". Interview with Charlie Rose, www.rediff.com. March 1, 2006.
  • The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge.

    Sri Aurobindo (2016). “Ideal And Progress”, p.23, Read Books Ltd
  • There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

    'Democracy and other Addresses' (1887) 'Democracy'
  • I am pragmatic. That which works, works, and theory can go screw itself. However, my pragmatism also extends to maintainability, which is why I also want it done well.

    Done   Want   Theory  
  • You simply can't make someone love you if they don't. You must choose someone who already loves you. If you choose someone who does not love you, this is the sort of love you must want.

  • You read the pragmatists and all you know is: not Descartes, not Kant, not Plato. It's like aspirin. You can't use aspirin to give yourself power, you take it to get rid of headaches. In that way, pragmatism is a philosophical therapy. It helps you stop asking the unhelpful questions.

    Interview with Gideon Lewis-Kraus, believermag.com. June 1, 2003.
  • The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear.

    Thomas Henry Huxley (2011). “Collected Essays”, p.425, Cambridge University Press
  • Utilitarianism is inherently pragmatic - in fact, I prefer to call it "deep pragmatism." Humans have real limitations, obligations, and frailties, so the best policy is to set reasonable goals, given your limitations. Just try to be a little less tribalistic.

    Real   Goal   Trying  
    Source: www.slate.com
  • It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities.

    H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.371, Knopf
  • [Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.

    Truth   Demand   Tests  
    William James (1981). “Pragmatism”, p.38, Hackett Publishing
  • Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?

    William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.77, Courier Corporation
  • The perception of the West as mostly a "knight of democracy" has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusion, a crushing of ideals.

    Crush   Selfish   Lying  
    Source: www.spiegel.de
  • I do believe in God, but I think it's very healthy for a believer to spend time in the pragmatism of agnosticism, and I think God appreciates agnostics trying to make a science of it and going, "I will not believe any further than that." I enjoy that kind of engineering mind. In no way did it ever feel blasphemous to me as a man of faith.

    Believe   Men   Thinking  
    "Q&A: True Detective's Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, the Laurel and Hardy of Existential Despair". Interview with John Lopez, grantland.com. January 8, 2014.
  • The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.

    Charles Sanders Peirce (1958). “Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance)”, p.69, Courier Corporation
  • The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.

    Letter to William James, January 08, 1909.
  • In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools, and its becoming almost generally true, it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools. Look back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies, pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face.

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

    Walter Isaacson (2011). “Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein”, p.130, Simon and Schuster
  • I've had a chance to meet some of my civil rights heroes and, more recently, members of the young generation around [Barack] Obama, people in their teens and twenties who were determined to make history and who were too idealistic to think that what they were trying to do might be impossible. They proved that visionary pragmatism can win over the majority. That comes from a particular place in your heart that generation Y is offering America. They just can't afford to be naive now, in terms of the ferocity of the opposition.

    Hero   Heart   Winning  
    Source: aalbc.com
  • Pragmatism is an intellectually safe but ultimately sterile philosophy.

  • Plato and his objectivistic successors ... preserved the awareness of differences that pragmatism has been invented to deny the difference between thinking in the laboratory and in philosophy, and consequently the difference between the destination of mankind and its present course.

    Max Horkheimer (2013). “Eclipse of Reason”, p.36, A&C Black
  • Man is by nature a pragmatic materialist, a mechanic, a lover of gadgets and gadgetry; and these are the qualities that characterize the "establishment" which regulates modern society: pragmatism, materialism, mechanization, and gadgetry. Woman, on the other hand, is a practical idealist, a humanitarian with a strong sense of noblesse oblige, an altruist rather than a capitalist.

    Strong   Men   Hands  
    "The First Sex". Book by Elizabeth Gould Davis. Chapter 22: "Woman in the Aquarian Age", 1971.
  • It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.

    Cesare Beccaria (2016). “On Crimes and Punishments”, p.107, Transaction Publishers
  • 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.

    Interview with Brian Lamb, Booknotes C-SPAN, November 13, 1994.
  • Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.

    Spiritual   Men   Law  
    Julien Benda, Roger Kimball (2017). “The Treason of the Intellectuals”, p.57, Routledge
  • Pragmatism is the disguise progressive and other ideologues do when they want to demonize competing ideologies.

    Jonah Goldberg (2012). “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas”, p.24, Penguin
  • The Citizen's Petition reflects Vermont's spirit of pragmatism and across-the-board cooperation. I applaud the 'Campaign to Fix the Debt' for calling attention to one of the country's most pressing problems, our ballooning national debt, and for urging policymakers to find practical solutions.

    Country   Calling   Debt  
  • Extremists on the left tend to be just as critical of pragmatism as extremists on the right.

  • All of the members of my new team have displayed in their work a strong sense of pragmatism that I promote... The backgrounds of principal officials are diverse, they all share a common commitment to our country, our territory and our people and agree with my governing philosophy.

    "New Team Takes Charge of HK Affairs". www.chinadaily.com.cn. June 25, 2007.
  • Among politicians and businessmen, *Pragmatism* is the current term for 'To hell with our children.'

    Children   Future   Hell  
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