Selected pragmatism quotes

1. As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

2. The universalists, the idealists, the Utopians all aim too high. They give promises of an unattainable paradise, and by doing so they deceive mankind. Whatever label they wear, whether they call themselves Christians, Communists, humanitarians, whether they are merely sincere but stupid or wire-pullers and cynics, they are all makers of slaves. I myself have always kept my eye fixed on a paradise which, in the nature of things, lies well within our reach. I mean an improvement in the lot of the German people. (21st February 1945)

3. In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them.

4. Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.

5. Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.

6. No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.

7. Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

8. My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

9. There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it.

10. I care not who hoes the lettuce of my country if I can eat the salad!

11. I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.

12. Take what you can use and let the rest go by.

13. If facts weren't funny, or scary, or couldn't make you rich, the heck with them.

14. Orthogonality for orthogonality's sake is not something I'm keen on.

15. Talk is cheap. Show me the code.

16. If you can't do what you want, do what you can.

17. The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.

18. One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

19. We do not consider our principles as dogmas contained in books that are said to come from heaven. We derive our inspiration, not from heaven, or from an unseen world, but directly from life.

20. The nation has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life.

21. If one cannot catch a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen.

22. In a fight you don't stop to choose your cudgels.

23. Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.

24. If you have some problem in your life and you need to deal with it then use religion it's fine. I use Google.

25. Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

26. Unnecessary customs live a brutally short life in America.

27. We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

28. We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

29. A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.

30. Don't argue about the difficulties. The difficulties will argue for themselves.

31. I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves.

32. 'Faith' is a fine invention When Gentlemen can see - But Microscopes are prudent In an Emergency.

33. One does simply what one can in order to apply what one knows.

34. The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.

35. Pacifism is a nice idea, but it can get you killed. We're not there yet. Evolution is slow, small pox is fast.

36. There are some people, nevertheless - and I am one of them - who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. ... We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them.

37. The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

38. When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, Idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.

39. I am a libertarian with a small l and a Republican with a capital R. And I am a Republican with a capital R on grounds of expediency, not on principle.

40. In advocating any measure we must consider not only its justice but its practicability.

41. I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored. But then it occurred to me that musing is a pointless waste of anyone's time, and instead I went off to see if I could find a Baby Ruth candy bar, a far more profitable exercise.

42. Circumstances...give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

43. The gods we stand by are the gods we need and can use, the gods whose demands on us are reinforcements of our demands on ourselves and on one another. What I then propose to do is, briefly stated, to test saintliness by common sense, to use human standards to help us decide how far the religious life commends itself as an ideal kind of human activity . ... It is but the elimination of the humanly unfit, and the survival of the humanly fittest, applied to religious beliefs; and if we look at history candidly and without prejudice, we have to admit that no religion has ever in the long run established or proved itself in any other way. Religions have approved themselves; they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning. When they violated other needs too strongly, or when other faiths came which served the same needs better, the first religions were supplanted.

44. The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience.

45. A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation

46. I had a hat. It was not all a hat,- Part of the brim was gone: Yet still I wore it on.

47. You can be as romantic as you please about love, Hector; but you mustn't be romantic about money.

48. Justice, I think, is the tolerable accomodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accomodations concretely.

49. The key is, to not think of death as an end, but as more of a very effective way to cut down on your expenses.

50. This thoroughly 'pragmatic' view of religion has usually been taken as a matter of course by common men. They have interpolated divine miracles into the field of nature, they have built a heaven out beyond the grave. It is only transcendentalist metaphysicians who think that, without adding any concrete details to Nature, or subtracting any, but by simply calling it the expression of absolute spirit, you make it more divine just as it stands. I believe the pragmatic way of taking religion to be the deeper way. It gives it body as well as soul, it makes it claim, as everything real must claim, some characteristic realm of fact as its very own. What the more characteristically divine facts are, apart from the actual inflow of energy in the faith-state and the prayer-state, I know not. But the over-belief on which I am ready to make my personal venture is that they exist. The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in. By being faithful in my poor measure to this over-belief, I seem to myself to keep more sane and true. I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist's attitude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and scientific laws and objects may be all. But whenever I do this, I hear that inward monitor of which W. K. Clifford once wrote, whispering the word 'bosh!' Humbug is humbug, even though it bear the scientific name, and the total expression of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow 'scientific' bounds. Assuredly, the real world is of a different temperament - more intricately built than physical science allows. So my objective and my subjective conscience both hold me to the over-belief which I express. Who knows whether the faithfulness of individuals here below to their own poor over-beliefs may not actually help God in turn to be more effectively faithful to his own greater tasks?

51. If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.

52. Nor are liberal ideals alone sufficient: Ours is a practical people, to whom ideals furnish the theory of political action, upon which they want not only firm assurance, but also effective practice. They want programmes, but they want action to flow from them. They want constructive common sense. They want the development of the common will, not the views of a single individual. They are beginning to realize that words without action are the assassins of idealism. On the other side, they are equally disgusted with seeking for power by destructive criticism, demagoguery, specious promises and sham.

53. Why stand when you can sit?

54. History without a value to transfigure it, is controlled by the law of expediency.

55. Obama's legislative record, speeches, and the way he has run his campaign reveal, I think, a very even temperament, a very sound judgment, and an intelligent pragmatism. Prudence is a word that is not inappropriate to him.

56. If I had believed him, everything would have been turned upside down... all would have been turned topsy-turvy to make room for impractical theories.

57. Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion; but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business, a man somewhat absurd, than over-formal.

58. He's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch.

59. As is true with respect to other great evils, the measures by which war might be made altogether impossible for the future may well be worse than even war itself. If we can reduce the risk of friction likely to lead to war, this is probably all we can reasonably hope to achieve.

60. The preaching in the churches does not make the lightning rods on them unnecessary.

61. The schoolboy who uses his Homer to throw at his fellow's head makes perhaps the safest and most rational use of him than any one ever will.

62. A movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there are too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.

63. The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

64. Geraldine: We must tell the truth! Prentice: That's a thoroughly defeatist attitude.

65. Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches. :-)

66. If there's a particular problem that Perl is trying to solve, it's the basic fact that all programming languages suck. Sort of the concept of original sin, applied to programming languages.

67. 'Regression testing'? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect.

68. The aspects of society that humanism most exalts are justice and continuity. That is why humanism is always being presented with a contradiction. For when it speaks of justice it holds that the human condition is absolute; yet when it speaks of continuity it implies that society is not absolute but pragmatic and even anomalous. Its intelligence dictates the removal of all that is anomalous; yet its ideal of social continuity is validated by by its perception that the effort to destroy anomaly out of hand will probably bring new and even worse anomalies, the nature of man being what it is. 'Let justice be done though the heavens fall' is balanced by awareness that after the heavens fall justice will not ever be done again.

69. Goethe is an altogether practical Poet. He is in his works what the English are in their wares: highly simple, neat, convenient and durable. He has done in German Literature what Wedgwood did in English Manufacture. He has, like the English, a natural turn for Economy, and a noble Taste acquired by Understanding. Both these are very compatible, and have a near affinity in the chemical sense.

70. He thought secrecy a virtue, and dissimulation no vice, and simulation, that is in plain English, a lie, or perfideousness to be a tolerable fault in case of necessity.

71. Qui finem quaeris amoris/Cedit amor rebus; res age, tutus eris.

72. Everything is impossible so just quit.

73. Non posso abbandonarmi a voli di fantasia perche cio e contrario alla mia natura.

74. Oil is not the enemy. We can peacefully co-exist with oil while looking for the miracle alternative fuel source that everybody wants, but we're going to have to do that while using oil. Oil is not the enemy, folks. It's our buddy.

75. If it don't make dollars it don't make sense.

76. My whole philosophy on this sort of thing is very simple. If I have any doubt as to whether I am supposed to do a job or not, I do it, and if someone socks me, I lay off.

77. J'aime fort la verite, mais je n'aime point du tout le martyre.

78. If you need anything, take it from the Americans!

79. I don't have labels. I believe in human beings, I believe in a strong national security, I believe in maximizing freedom... I can give you a whole list of things i'm for, but I believe in solving problems. I guess, more than anything else, I'm a pragmatist with strong beliefs in people.

80. Why that's a hundred miles away. That's a long way to go just to eat.

81. Immediate luminousness, in short, philosophical reasonableness and moral helpfulness are the only available criteria. Saint Teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow, and it would not now save her theology, if the trial of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible. And conversely if her theology can stand these other tests, it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously off balance Saint Teresa may have been when she was with us here below.

82. No particular results then, so far, but only an attitude of orientation, is what the pragmatic method means. The attitude of looking away from first things, principles, 'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.

83. Truth therefore and utility are here the very same thing:

84. ...the Democrats know that no matter how many GATTs, NAFTAs, empty OSHAs, and other betrayals...they heap on those labor leaders, they can be had because, once again, the Republicans are deemed worse.

85. If my uncle had wheels and pedals, he'd be a bicycle. We really can't engage in 'if's.

86. Shut up and calculate!

87. There has to be a woman, but not much of a one. A good horse is much more important.

88. The system, though it may not be perfect in every part, is, upon the whole, a good one; is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit; and is such an one as promises every species of security which a reasonable people can desire.

89. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in 'irreducible and stubborn facts': all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament, who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles.

90. Free trade is not a principle; it is an expedient.

91. 'As for that,' said Waldenshare, 'sensible men are all of the same religion.' 'Pray, what is that?' inquired the Prince. 'Sensible men never tell.'

92. If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.

93. No policy is worth anything outside of reality.

94. [On the most beautiful words in the English language] The ones I like...are 'cheque' and 'enclosed.'

95. The world belongs to who doesn't feel. The primary condition to be a practical man is the absence of sensitivity.

96. There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it.

97. 'Oh, I'm not a Berkeleian. I believe my back's against this wall. I believe there's a sten gun over there.'

98. [regarding Mrs. Teasdale's late husband] Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.

99. The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.

100. What is right and what is practicable are two different things.