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Pragmatists Quotes

Browse 38 quotes about Pragmatists.

Pragmatists Quotes

“If somebody can create an absolute system of beliefs and rules of conduct that will guide a business man at eleven o'clock in the morning, a boy trying to select a career, a woman in an unhappy love affair--well then, surely no pragmatist will object. He insists only that philosophy shall come down to earth and be tried out there.”

IfsMenTryingWellsPhilosophyEarthBeliefBoysCareersMorningObjectsAbsolutesAffairGuidesUnhappyClockSelectElevenLove AffairDown To EarthBusiness ManPragmatists
Book:Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest
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“Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.”

WorldShouldHumansMayPhilosophyMightPastPoliticalStruggleDemocracyFourRightsCenturyTheoryStructureHuman RightsVainHumanistStemConstructsComfortingPolitical PhilosophyPrescriptionsCrudeHeirsSupremacyDeterminismPersonal FreedomTerritorialBourbonCredoMaritimePragmatistsBonaparte
Book:Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World
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“Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.”

HumansMayReasonPastFightingMereMysticismCatholicismRitualAgain And AgainExaggerationSuperstitiousRepressedAsceticismHuman ReasonPragmatists
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“Generally speaking, followers will not commit themselves for very long to a leader who is not also a pragmatist. As most of us have discovered, dreams are only powerful when we believe they can come true. Pipe dreams belong in the realm of fantasy; leaders' dreams belong in the realm of possibility.”

BelieveLongDreamLeadershipPowerfulLeaderFantasyPossibilityCommitRealmsFollowersPipePragmatistsRealm Of PossibilityPipe Dreams
Book:The Language of leadership
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“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

ThinkingHappinessChoicesFearAbilityAnxietyWeaponsStressPhilosophicalCaringTensionReliefAnxiousRelaxationRelaxedStressedCopingStressfulStress ReliefStress ManagementGreatest LoveCalmingStress FreeStressorsAnxiety And FearStress And AnxietyWork StressReduce StressUnder StressLife StressPragmatistsAbility To ChooseStress RelievingStress And LifeStressful LifeRelaxation And StressNo StressInspirational StressStress RelieverStress LevelsDealing With StressStress ReleaseStressful DayLess Stress
Author:William James
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“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.”

InspirationalHumansHumorMotivationalHappinessHuman BeingsHealingAttitudeGenerationsPositivePositive ThinkingHealthDiscoveryInspirational AttitudeIntelligencePositivityLife ChangingPositive AttitudeBad AssChanging Your LifeAlteredMy GenerationBeing PositiveMy AttitudeThis GenerationThink PositiveMental AttitudeAptitudePositive Thinking And AttitudeBest AttitudeKeep A Positive AttitudePositive Thinking AttitudeBad AttitudeNegative AttitudeGreat AttitudeLife AttitudeGood AttitudePositive Mental AttitudeAttitude And LifeGreat Positive AttitudeChange Your AttitudeShort Positive AttitudeThink Positive Be PositivePositive Attitude In LifeLife AlteringInspirational Positive AttitudePositive Attitude Towards LifePositive Thinking In LifeChanging AttitudeDiscovery In LifePragmatistsCool AttitudeStaying Positive In LifeMy Life Is ChangingPositive Attitude ImagesGreatest GenerationPositive Day
Author:William James
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“All of Robert Caro's biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro's fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century.”

DoneUsePowerfulCenturyFiguresEvolutionFundamentalsRangeMost PowerfulBiographies20th CenturyMasterpieceExceptionalMosesThings DoneIdealistGetting Things DoneAmbivalenceBrokersPragmatists
Author:Jeffrey Pfeffer
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“The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.”

YearsSelfWholeMightActionChristianPoliticalHateViewsResponsibilityStudyPsychologyCollegeBabyProveMajorsFaultsKillingCome UpFavorsPunishmentTherapyAbortionFree WillRighteousnessPlatformsCreedsSociologyTaking ResponsibilityMurdererItemsSanctionsUnbornSelf RighteousnessCapital PunishmentCallousPragmatistsUnborn Baby
Book:Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer
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“Man wants to see nature and evolution as separate from human activities. There is a natural world, and there is man. But man also belongs to the natural world. If he is a ferocious predator, that too is part of evolution. If cod and haddock and other species cannot survive because man kills them, something more adaptable will take their place. Nature, the ultimate pragmatist, doggedly searches for something that works. But as the cockroach demonstrates, what works best in nature does not always appeal to us.”

IfsMenWorldWantHumansDoeNaturalEvolutionActivityUltimateSpeciesAppealsNatural WorldPredatorHuman ActivityCockroachesAdaptablePragmatists
Author:Mark Kurlansky
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“Behind every footballing tough guy there lurks a mincing aesthete with a love of art for art's sake, football for football's sake. A win without art is somehow less than a victory; less, almost, than a beautiful defeat. In football, the romantic and the pragmatist are ever at war in the same breast. Beauty, it must be understood here, is not Barcelona's aim but their method. And last night they were ready to use this method at every opportunity - quick-fire passing of wit and purpose in the danger areas, seeking always to produce an unlooked-for player in a position of threat.”

ArtWarUseLastsBeautifulPurposeNightGuyOpportunityWinningBehindsFirePlayerDangerPositionProduceFootballReadyVictoryUnderstoodArt IsToughAreasAimMethodThreatSakeDefeatSeekingWitPassingPassingsSoccerAnalysisBreastsLast NightBarcelonaTough GuyPragmatists
Author:Simon Barnes
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“Like Dvoretsky, I think that (all other things being equal), the analytical method of studying chess must give you a colossal advantage over the chess pragmatist, and that there can be no certainty in chess without analysis. I personally acquired these views from my sessions with Mikhail Botvinnik, and they laid the foundations of my chess-playing life.”

ThinkingGivingViewsStudyEqualAdvantageMethodFoundationChessCertaintyAnalysisSessionColossalBeing EqualPragmatists
Author:Garry Kasparov
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