Realist Quotes - Page 3

• I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist.

  Bill Maher

  Men, Want, Pessimist

  "Larry King Live", transcripts.cnn.com. September 14, 2010.

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• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says 'we can change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best. 'Spare me the grim litany of the 'realist;' give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day.

  Colin Powell

  Change, Attitude, Talking

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• The sorcerer is a Simple Realist: the world is real--but then so must consciousness be real since its effects are so tangible.

  Hakim Bey

  Real, Simple, World

  Hakim Bey (2003). “T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism”, p.22, Autonomedia

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• An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.

  Peter Drucker

  Should, Cynic, Executives

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• You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.

  George Santayana

  Philosophy, Heart, Reality

  Durant Drake, Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, James Bissett Pratt, Arthur Kenyon Rogers, George Santayana (1920). “Essays in critical realism: a co-operative study of the problem of knowledge”

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• You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Men, Cynical, May

  Sydney J. Harris (1953). “Strictly personal”

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• It is my strong conviction that a realist conception of human nature should be made a servant of an ethic of progressive justice and should not be made into a bastion of conservatism, particularly a conservatism which defends unjust privileges.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Strong, Justice, Unjust

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2012). “Man's Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man's Personal and Social Existence”, p.24, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• I am a great realist in all aspects of life. Whatever I can do ... here it is.

  Olga Korbut

  Aspects Of Life, Can Do, I Can

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• I'm not an optimist. I'm a realist. And my reality is that we live in a multifaceted, multicultural world. And maybe once we stop labeling ourselves, then maybe everyone else will.

  Octavia Spencer

  Reality, World, Optimist

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• I'm a realist. I like to put it in business terms. I ran three different corporations my way and I was successful. But I'm an older guy who is on his way out so they brought me in as a consultant for the new, up-and-coming CEO. I'm here for him.

  Shaquille O'Neal

  Basketball, Successful, Guy

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• I don't favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect of our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach his objectives peacefully. But I'm also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are black people.

  Malcolm X

  Country, Mean, People

  Malcolm X (1992). “By any means necessary”, Pathfinder Pr

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• Women decide the larger questions of life correctly and quickly, not because they are lucky guessers, not because they are divinely inspired, not because they practise a magic inherited from savagery, but simply and solely because they have sense. They see at a glance what most men could not see with searchlights and telescopes.... They are the supreme realists of the race.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Race, Magic

  In Defense of Women, rev. ed., pt. 1, ch. 5 (1922)

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• If you are a novelist of a certain type of termperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist except he was a Realist.

  John Barth

  Novelists, World, Crafts

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• My paintings are about light, about the way things look in their environment and especially about how things look painted. Form, colour and space are at the whim of reality, their discovery and organization is the assignment of the realist painter.

  Ralph Goings

  Reality, Light, Discovery

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• A man who has been shot at is a new realist, and what do you say to a realist when the war is a war of ideals?

  Michael Shaara

  War, Men, Shots

  Jeff Shaara, Michael Shaara (2012). “The Civil War Trilogy 3-Book Boxset (Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, and The Last Full Measure)”, p.435, Ballantine Books

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• I am a realist. I expect miracles.

  Wayne Dyer

  Miracle

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• You get to a certain age and you're just glad to be there. I don't know what to add to that. It's fun. You have to be a realist, so you try to look for roles that are within the age you are.

  Clint Eastwood

  Fun, Age, Trying

  "Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams & Justin Timberlake Talk TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, A STAR IS BORN & Republican National Convention". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. September 17, 2012.

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• Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Husband, Humility, Pride

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.61, Harvard University Press

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• Reading the morning newspaper is the realist's morning . One orients one's attitude toward the either by or by what the world is. The former gives as much security as the latter, in that one knows how one stands.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Morning, Attitude, Reading

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (2002). “Miscellaneous Writings of G.W.F. Hegel”

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• For realists, war is like surgery-a painful and dangerous activity that is sometimes necessary ... A pacifist is like a Christian Scientist who is against surgery even when the alternative is the crippling or death of the patient.

  Michael Lind

  Christian, War, Alternatives

  Michael Lind (2013). “Vietnam: The Necessary War”, p.220, Simon and Schuster

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• I can be fairly optimistic, but I'm probably more a realist, I think. I mean, optimism's an interesting quality, isn't it, because I'm always slightly dubious as to what's behind it?

  Guy Pearce

  Optimistic, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• A strong man must be militant as well as moderate. He must be a realist as well as an idealist.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Strong, Men, Idealist

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

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• I think I'm a realist. Which people who don't like me consider to be pessimism. It isn't pessimism at all. If I was a pessimist I wouldn't get up, I wouldn't shave, I wouldn't watch Batman at 7:30 a.m. Pessimists just don't do that sort of thing.

  Steven Morrissey

  Thinking, People, Watches

  "Stop me if you've heard this one before". "NME" Magazine, February 20, 1988.

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• Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists.

  Agatha Christie

  Liars, Men, Eyelashes

  Agatha Christie (1951). “Dame Agatha abroad”

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• This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist.

  Warren Rudman

  People, Sound, May

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