Realism Quotes

We over-exaggerate yesterday. We either think it was better or worse than it was - you know, the good old days. We over-estimate tomorrow; we think we can do more than we can - always. And that's why we put off everything till tomorrow.

Fanny! You are killing me!" "No man dies of love but on the stage, Mr. Crawford.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

I want to talk about political and economic fairy tales.

It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster.There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference.

The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism.

There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference.

What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people.

I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.

I was pretty realistic to people about what we could get done, and the situation we were in, and trying to tamp down expectations. If you listen to my stump speeches, if you listen to what I said at Grant Park, I kept on saying, "Look, this is not just about me, this is not going to happen in one year, or one term, or even one presidency." And we tried to layer into everything we were saying a sense of hope, but also realism.

Great leaders must be able to realize when something isn’t working-no matter how hard they’ve worked to make it succeed.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

We have no lasting friends, no lasting enemies, only lasting interests.

Revolutions are never peaceful.

The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

It is no use dealing with illusions and make-believes. We must look at the facts. The world ... is too dangerous for anyone to be able to afford to nurse illusions. We must look at realities.

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.

The first draft of anything is sh*t.

For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.

To be really useful, we must keep pace with the state of society, and not dishearten it by attempts at what its population, means, or occupations will fail in attempting.

Never make heads straight on the shoulders, but turn them aside to the right or to the left, even though they look down, or upward, or straight ahead, because it is necessary for them to look lively and awake and not asleep. And do not depict the front or rear half of the whole person so that too much straightness is displaced, one half above or below the other half; and if you should wish to use stiff figures, do so only in portraying old people.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed. You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest. Except when you don't. Because, sometimes, you won't.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

The trouble with many married people is that they are trying to get more out of marriage than there is in it.

Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius... or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.

I have no happy fairyland vision that she can win.

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

men are not realists - only women are.

I'm more focused on making a scene seem real as opposed to perfect.

I tend to avoid melodrama. I try to create very realistic settings and very realistic experiences and realistic responses to these experiences. Melodrama is the use of really big events that may or may not happen in real life - certainly they do, but they're not events that are common to most people. Most of the things that happen in my novels are things that could happen to people in real life.

The secret of Greek Art is its imitation of nature even to the minutest details; whereas the secret of Indian Art is to represent the ideal. The energy of the Greek painter is spent in perhaps painting a piece of flesh, and he is so successful that a dog is deluded into taking it to be a real bit of meat and so goes to bite it. Now, what glory is there in merely imitating nature? Why not place an actual bit of flesh before the dog?

Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power.

A political movement must keep in touch with reality and the prevailing conditions. Long speeches, the shaking of fists, the banging of tables, and strongly worded resolutions out of touch with the objective conditions do not bring about mass action and can do a great deal of harm to the organization and the struggle we serve.

The vivacity and brightness of colors in a landscape will never bear any comparison with a landscape in nature when it is illumined by the sun, unless the painting is placed in such a position that it will receive the same light from the sun as does the landscape.

Come, for the House of Hope is built on sand: bring wine, for the fabric of life is as weak as the wind.

I had some shots that I felt like I should've made; I just didn't make them. I'm not going to shoot the ball great every night.

Both the President and Mr Gorbachev have said that they want to see a world without nuclear weapons. I cannot see a world without nuclear weapons. Let me be practical about it. The knowledge is there to make them. So do not go too hard for that pie in the sky because, while everyone would like to see it, I do not believe it is going to come about.

To expect an impossibility is madness.

I've sought a constructive relationship with Russia, but what I have also been is realistic in recognizing that there is some significant differences in how Russia views the world and how we view the world.

Nourish your hopes, but do not overlook realities.

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

Here one must think profoundly to the very basis and resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation - but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?

The man who isn't a pessimist is a damned fool.

We ought not to desire the impossible.

Peace will not be preserved by pious sentiments.

Good dialogue is not real speech-it's the illusion of real speech.

Shadows which you see with difficulty, and whose boundaries you cannot define... these you should not represent as finished or sharply defined, for the result would be that your work would seem wooden.

Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.

He who draws... ought to take his position so that the eye of the figure he is drawing is on a level with his own... because, generally, figures or people whom you meet in the streets all have their eyes at the same level as yours, and if you make them higher or lower you will find that your portrait will not resemble them.

People can't seem to get it through their heads that there is never any healing or closure. Ever. There is only a short pause before the next "horrifying" event. People forget there is such a thing as memory, and that when a wound "heals" it leaves a permanent scar that never goes away, but merely fades a little. What really ought to be said after one of these so-called tragedies is, "Let the scarring begin.

It is not always possible to have everything go as one likes. In working with allies, it sometimes happens that they develop opinions of their own

It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war.

But you can't show some far off idyllic conception of behavior if you want the kids to come and see the picture. You've got to show what it's really like, and try to reach them on their own grounds.

Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.

To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can't stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do 'anything.' If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.

No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done.

What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide. "That is because I know what life is," said Martin.

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