146 Quotes About Pragmatism

If we live with possibilities we are exiles from the present which is given us by God to be our own, homeless and displaced in a future or a past which are not ours because they are always beyond our reach. The present is our right place, and we can lay hands on whatever it offers us.

Intellectual and moral progress is not a matter of getting closer to an antecedent goal but of surpassing the past.

To reach truth that one cannot be argued out of is to escape from the linguistically expressible to the ineffable. Only the ineffable—what is not describable at all—cannot be described differently.

Dad had turned conservative, but not in the way of the demonologists who sold us out for tenure and crumbs. More like a man who spurns the false talk of revolution for the humbler mission of resurrecting one soul at a time.

You can run, but you can't hide. So keep running!

She looked at me. "What? Is there something wrong with my idea?""It's not very heroic," I said dismissively. "I was expecting something with a little more flair.""Well, I left my armor and warhorse at home," she said. "You're just upset because your big University brain couldn't think of a way, and my plan is brilliant.

Ordinary life goes on--that has saved many a man's reason.

As usual, the note occupied less than a page and included neither salutation nor closing, Uncle Hal's opinion being that since the letter had a direction upon it, the intended recipient was obvious, the seal indicated plainly who had written it, and he did not waste his time in writing to fools.

Whatever the truth is, I don’t see how it will help me get food on the table.