Realist Quotes - Page 4

• The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at it's best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Strong, Humble, Men

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

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• I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.

  Aretha Franklin

  People, Accepting

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• Dreaming in public is an important part of our job description, as science writers, but there are bad dreams as well as good dreams. We're dreamers, you see, but we're also realists, of a sort.

  William Gibson

  Dream, Jobs, Work

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• The most important thing taught to my students is to not be so photo realist in what they depict.

  Frank Bruno

  Sports, Athlete, Important

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• My mother is a realist, and she's had biological and adoptive children, and she said it's no different: No matter what, they're putting a stranger into your arms. You don't know them yet.

  Katherine Heigl

  Mother, Children, Different

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• Nuclear war is inevitable, says the pessimists; Nuclear war is impossible, says the optimists; Nuclear war is inevitable unless we make it impossible, says the realists.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Peace, War, Nuclear

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• Most people are optimists, although they may claim they are not. People who call themselves realists are often the biggest optimists of all.

  Stephen King

  People, May, Claims

  Stephen King (2015). “The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories”, p.209, Simon and Schuster

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• I don't ever want to be a sentimentalist. I prefer to be a realist. I'm not a romantic really.

  James Earl Jones

  Want

  "The Voice of Triumph". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 29, 1996.

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• I'm a realist and I always have been.

  Jackie Joyner-Kersee

  Has Beens

  "Five minutes with Jackie Joyner-Kersee". Interview With Julie Deardorff, www.chicagotribune.com. May 2, 2012.

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• In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

  Bertrand Russell

  Results, Idealism, Ambiguity

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Theory of Knowledge: The 1913 Manuscript”, p.6, Routledge

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• I am a mixture of idealist and realist.

  Roger Moore

  Mixtures, Idealist

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• I don't think I'm morbid by nature. Serious writers have always written about serious subjects. Lighthearted material doesn't appeal to me, and I don't read it. I think I'm a realist, with a realistic sensibility of history and the tragedy of history.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Thinking, Tragedy, Serious Subjects

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• When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I'm a little bit more of a realist now. I think there's a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it's more about choosing your battles.

  Conor Oberst

  Thinking, Battle, Done

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• He was a romantic in his own harsh way…yet he was also realist enough to know that some times love actually did conquer all.

  Stephen King

  Love Actually, Way, Conquer

  Stephen King (2016). “The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three”, p.340, Simon and Schuster

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• The realists do not take the photograph for a 'copy' of reality, but for an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art.

  Roland Barthes

  Photography, Art, Past

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• How can you say one style is better than another? You ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or a realist, without feeling you've given up something.. I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's is going to happen, that's going to be the whole new scene.

  Andy Warhol

  Artist, Thinking, Next Week

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• Realists are, as a rule, only men in the rut of routine who are incapable of transcending a narrow circle of antiquated notions.

  Theodor Herzl

  Men, Circles, Routine

  Theodor Herzl (1970). “The Jewish state: (Der Judenstaat).”

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• For what reason then do the realists show themselves so unfriendly toward philosophy? Because they misunderstand their own calling and with all their might want to remain restricted instead of becoming unrestricted! Why do they hate abstractions? Because they themselves are abstract since they abstract from the perfection of themselves, from the elevation of redeeming truth!

  Max Stirner

  Hate, Philosophy, Perfection

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• The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

  James Branch Cabell

  Tunnels, Light, Track

  The Silver Stallion bk. 4, ch. 26 (1926) See Leibniz 3; Voltaire 7; Voltaire 8

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• When I was very, very young, seven years old, I heard there was school where you could go to learn to draw. That was my absolute driven passion, to become an artist or a painter. So the romantic realist in me, I studied to be a graphic design artist and an art teacher.

  David Coverdale

  Romantic, Teacher, Art

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• Idealists are people who believe in the potential of human nature for transformation. . . . The most essential attribute of human nature is its mutability and freedom from instinct . . . it is always within our power to change our nature. So it is actually the idealists who are on the mark and the realists who are off base.

  M. Scott Peck

  Believe, People, Essentials

  M. Scott Peck (1983). “People of the Lie”, p.247, Simon and Schuster

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• Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Taken, Writing, Reality

  Bertolt Brecht, John Willett (1964). “Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic”

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• I've never understood the division between so-called realists and so-called idealists.

  Hillary Clinton

  Division, Idealist, Understood

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• A fierce brief fusion which dreamers call real, and realists, an illusion; an insight like the flight of birds.

  Sylvia Plath

  Real, Bird, Dreamer

  Sylvia Plath, “Love Is A Parallax”

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• I'm quite optimistic. I'm also a realist. And I hope, you know, things work out. I don't think that the world will ever know peace. Complete peace in all countries. I think perhaps that's not in our makeup to do this although we can pray for it and work for it. But I think that the building blocks of peace are moving into shape, and I think that the world is going to be a better place.

  Shirley Temple

  Country, Block, Moving

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