Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I doubt there's any government in the world that guides itself primarily by strategy or conceptual documents or worldview. Anybody who has the reins of power has to look at practical limitations and tradeoffs - the fact that you can focus at most on one or two things at a time, that resources are limited.
When I started studying architecture, people would say, you know, 'Can you tell me why are all modern buildings so boring?' Because, like, people had this idea that in the good old days, architecture had, like, ornament and little towers and spires and gargoyles, and today, it just becomes very practical.
My mum thought my TV and film addiction was laziness. If you're an immigrant, you know you'll never be an accepted part of society, but you hope your children will be, and you try to make them essential to the community in a practical way - being a doctor or a lawyer. Acting was beyond their comprehension.
There are a lot of different ways of building a prosperous society, and some of them use much less energy than others. And it is possible and more practical to talk about rebuilding systems to use much less energy than it is to think about trying to meet greater demands of energy through clean energy alone.
It was the 'Gaucho' album that finished us off. We had pursued an idea beyond the point where it was practical. That album took about two years, and we were working on it all of that time - all these endless tracking sessions involving different musicians. It took forever, and it was a very painful process.
We ministers have undoubtedly failed to connect and apply Christianity to the practical everyday problems of the average man. In this, we have failed to follow in Christ's footsteps. For the religion which He taught and revealed in His own life and ministry was an intensely practical and down-to-earth affair.
As the owner of the Arison Group, a philanthropic and business enterprise that spans across 40 countries in 5 continents, my ongoing challenge is to bridge the gap between what I envision and its understanding and practical implementation. The Arison Group operates to realize the overall vision of Doing Good.
Democracy is extremely complex; it is extremely concrete. It's about constantly choosing, finding, developing practical options within the common good. Constantly searching for how to express in a practical way the common good, not in some grand way, some grand and absolute way, but in a very comfortable way.
One of the things about being a law student is that the academic discipline of law is very often removed from the practical reality of law. How to complain, who to complain to, and whether or not you even need to invoke the law is very different in the real world from how it's examined in the lecture theatre.
Herbert Hoover was a man of genuine, fine character, but he lacked practical political sense. And he couldn't bend and shift and change with the requirements of the time. And he was a ruined President, because he was such a, I think, stiff-backed ideologue. And I think that speaks volumes about his character.
True Americanism is practical idealism. Its aims, instead of being materialistic and mechanical, are idealistic to the point of being Utopian. In this way, the U.S. can provide and express ideals that strike a chord in humans everywhere - a declaration of independence on behalf of all the peoples of the world.
The Gospels record that nearly everywhere the Savior went, He was surrounded by multitudes of people. Some hoped that He would heal them; others came to hear Him speak. Others came for practical advice. Toward the end of His mortal ministry, some came to mock and ridicule Him and to clamor for His crucifixion.
As devices continue to shrink and voice recognition and other kinds of alternative user-interfaces become more practical, it is going to change how we interact with computing devices. They may fade into the background and just be around, allowing us to talk to them just as we would some other trusted companion.
When I was a child, there was very little money, so I've always been concerned for my financial security, which has meant that finding myself as a writer was a bad move. The practical difference the money has made is that I can support myself by fiction. That is what I have been trying to do throughout my life.
Miami is nothing like me, and that's why I need to be here - it's the opposite. I'm practical, where this place is moody, I'm stolid in my interior, where this place has a certain flair, and I'm materialistic in a sense that this place is fundamentally spiritual - there's a quicksilver quality about this place.
Clearly, unless the Lord chooses to explain Himself to us, which often He does not, His motivation and purposes are beyond the reach of mortal man. What this means in practical terms is that many of our questions - especially those that begin with the word 'why' - will have to remain unanswered for the time being.
The Tories must stop focusing on their ideological obsession with a hard Brexit and their internal party divisions and start focusing on what is best for our country and our economy. Their absurd proposal that the U.K. should become the E.U.'s tariff collector is neither practical nor palatable across the Channel.
When I was nine years old, I wrote a short story called 'How to Build a Snowman,' from which no practical snowperson-crafting techniques could be gleaned. The story was an assignment for class and it featured a series of careful but meaningless instructions. Of course, the building of the snowman was a red herring.
I think the most significant change in my life is the decision to do a series. An hourlong dramatic television series on a broadcast network swallows you and chews you up and refuses to spit you out. You're making a decision that's going to be a profound and significant impact on the practical aspects of your life.
Every situation has qualities. Essentially, we quantify them and that's the practical side of our lives, so the involvement with perception and in acquiring the perception is our ability to understand qualities. They exist only as long as a human being keeps them in play. They're - Therefore they are akin to energy.
The research I have been doing - studying how foodstuffs yield energy in living cells - does not lead to the kind of knowledge that can be expected to give immediate practical benefits to mankind. If I have chosen this field of study, it was because I believed in its importance in spite of its theoretical character.
We have the character of an island nation: independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty. We can no more change this British sensibility than we can drain the English Channel. And because of this sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional.
Does being practical mean we prop up a legal system that's unfair, that bears its weight down on black men and black women, and by extension if you are Hispanic or indigenous or poor? Does being practical mean you don't say to the American people you deserve better than you're getting? That's not the practical we want.
When we talk about music, we tend to place our experiences into one of two categories: making the music and listening to it. Delineating the two seems practical and obvious. In reality, though, there are a lot of opportunities for overlap, and it doesn't matter how you get into the music as long as you connect with it.
The women's movement gave me a set of tools to think about things like my body and how people react to me and the way that my dating life was going. It's a very practical movement - yes, it's about issues like how we can get more women MPs elected, but it's also about how feminism affects things like your relationship.
Personally, I've realized that the tradition I thought of as too safe, too pretty, and too conventional is the space where women have been able to gain some practical ground. The area of music where we thought the status quo was really being upset - specifically hard rock - has actually remained the most male-dominated.
For Mitt Romney, the complex question of anti-Mormon bias boils down to the practical matter of how he can make it go away. Facing a traditional American anti-Catholicism, John F. Kennedy gave a speech during the 1960 presidential campaign declaring his private religion irrelevant to his qualifications for public office.
I, Maggie, personally cannot tell you that you're going to save the planet. But what I do know is that we can draw a line to an issue that can conserve what we already have and what's left in a way that we can actually breathe the air, drink the water, actually grow things in soil - that matters in a real, practical way.
My course is about really working on a sheet of music. You work out the chords, which note complements the other, and how they will make the feeling of tension, the feeling of resolution. It's all about harmonization. That's more of the theory of notation and everything rather than practical. I don't play any instrument.
In Strapping, I had experimented with a creative catharsis under the assumption that art doesn't need to be accountable for itself, but I found out in very practical ways that you are accountable for everything you say. Everything you write, everything you do becomes not only your identity but your world resonates with it.
Individuals and communities need to clearly tell government if they want parity for First Australians. Only this will overcome the vested interests of governments and administrators and see these practical, inexpensive solutions for what they are: a way to finally achieve results, with the strength of will from each of us.
I was in California the first time I heard Michael Jackson wanted to record with me. I was, like, 'Nah, no way, he's too big, it can't be true.' Then I got a call from Michael's people at my hotel telling me he was interested. But I still wasn't believing it - I thought they were setting me up for a TV practical jokes show.
Lucasfilm called me out of the blue, and I almost hung up because I thought it was a practical joke. This was right before 'Revenge Of The Sith' came out. Here you are, a big 'Star Wars' fan, talking about 'Star Wars' all the time, and you have your master replica lightsaber, and then you get a call from Lucasfilm for a job?
Here's how I work: It's 2013, and most marketers are operating like it's 2009. I'm always trying to market like it's 2015, but not like it's 2020. A lot of my contemporaries who understand where the world is going, go too far out, and aren't practical. I have always prided myself on being visionary, with a heavy practicality.
Conscience is the most dangerous thing you possess. If you wake it up, it may destroy you. To live a life of total moral rigor is not necessarily the way to go. It's the path for very few people. Most people need to come up with some kind of middle ground that satisfies their practical, moral, and philosophical esthetic needs.
I remember someone once said there is a practical aspect to my designs, and I remember thinking, 'That doesn't sound so creative,' but that is actually the truth. There is a practicality to it. I don't design just to design. There is a reason and, hopefully, an interesting reason behind it - that is where my creativity comes in.
It's better not to wear too much jewellery - just a couple of nice things, nothing too rattly - and stick to kitten heels or flats. Women let themselves down with tall heels. I think they're kind of vulgar. I see women sinking into grass at outdoor parties or tiptoeing over gravel at weddings. It's silly. You need to be practical.
Directing is the best job going. I don't understand why everybody doesn't want to direct. It's an absolutely fascinating combination of skills required and puzzles set on every level - emotional and practical and technical. It calls up on such a wide variety of skills. I find it completely absorbing. I just love the whole process.
I don't know what marriages are like in general, but there are many things which I don't talk about with my husband. We discuss practical problems, but I wouldn't sit down with him and talk about the distant past. It's somewhat in contrast to other Americans, who feel that they have to confess things, but I'm really not like that.
America needs a strong, rational, positive, practical conservative movement. It needs that bulwark against liberal delusion and hubris. It needs a voice that says we are imperfect, that life is complex, that government can create need even as it meets need, that you can't fix everything, and freedom is worth some danger and sorrow.
I picked economics at the end of my undergraduate time because it seemed to be a really nice combination of theory, including mathematical theory on one hand, and things that are quite practical that you can touch and see and feel. So I picked it, and I consciously thought of it as an experiment to see if I liked it. And it worked.
Before Dream Theater took off I used to teach a lot, and one of the things my students often asked me was how to apply the chromatic scale to practical playing situations. You see, their other teachers would give them chromatic warm-up exercises without providing any explanation of how important and versatile this scale actually is.
At a personal level, it's just the day-to-day: I'm a mum that needs to meet all of the responsibilities that come with being a mum, making sure that Neve has the basics, that she's fed, that she's loved, that she sleeps as much as we're able to get her to sleep, and we will do that together. That's a practical reality of my new role.
I'm a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don't fall off. And you try not to use them too often.
My life motto is basically to lower your standards and expectations so you're never disappointed and never put any trust in anything, and I try to prepare for the day that I wake up, and everyone I know is like, 'LOL JK best long-running practical joke ever', so I've never really let myself freak out or get too excited about anything.
I love horror comedies, and I love horror movies. In particular, I love horror movies from the '80s that have practical monsters in them. They're not just slasher movies with people going to kill people in people's houses. Although I do like 'The Last House on the Left,' and things like that, I do like these ridiculous monster movies.
Think about Kennedy. Think about Carter. Think about Clinton. Think about Obama. They've all been in their forties and from outside Washington, or underdogs in one way or another. I just think that Americans are looking everywhere, saying, 'Hey, show me some authenticity. Show me somebody who's practical. Show me people who run things.'
I like to wear shoes that are cool but also practical. The same goes for bags. Your bag is a big deal in New York. You can't just carry around a little clutch, because you don't have a car or anywhere to stash things during the day, so you need to carry your whole life with you. That's why I like big, chunky bags with lots of compartments.
Dad has worked as a banker at the same firm in Boston, living in the same suburban neighborhood for over 50 years. Later in life, when I got out of graduate school and imagined myself living the life of a writer like Hemingway or Kerouac, his practical self inevitably encouraged me to get a steady a job and raise a family, just like he did.
In a movie, it's often important to have aliens whose gestures and facial expressions can be 'read' by humans. And in the days before sophisticated computer animation, most extraterrestrial bit players were guys in rubber suits. Such practical considerations forced Hollywood's hand when it came to aliens - they look like us for good reasons.