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pragmatic
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  • There was really only one question, and it was asked in a mental voice of utter coldness and pragmatism,   (source)
    pragmatism = concern with practical matters
  • The Reverend failed to notice that every churchgoing family whose children were struck hard with the kakakaka quietly removed themselves back to ancestor worship, while a few of the heathen families that were hard hit quietly came and tried out Christianity. While it makes perfect sense to me, this pragmatic view of religion escapes the Reverend utterly.   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters
  • "It's nice to see that you've developed a healthy respect for your own skin over the years, Lucian. You weren't always so pragmatic."   (source)
  • Maybe it was a symbol of the balance in my life between aspiration and pragmatism.   (source)
    pragmatism = concern with practical matters
  • And what Harry Truman said, really, was nothing different from the practical, pragmatic attitude of any laboratory scientist or any engineer or any mechanic when he's not thinking "objectively" in the course of his daily work.   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters
  • And it suited Farmer temperamentally because, for all his scholarship and interest in theories, his strongest impulses were pragmatic.   (source)
  • Dick's literalness, his pragmatic approach to every subject, was the primary reason Perry had been attracted to him, for it made Dick seem, compared to himself, so authentically tough, invulnerable, "totally masculine."   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters (as compared to concern with theory or beauty)
  • There was a single car in the clinic parking lot, the nurse's powder-blue Fairlane, conservative and pragmatic and newer than his own.   (source)
    pragmatic = practical
  • If the goal of visionaries is to make a quantum leap forward, the goal of pragmatists is to make a percentage improvement — incremental, measurable, predictable progress.   (source)
    pragmatists = concerned with practical matters -- especially where experience triumphs over theory
  • A little more than a week ago she'd found the first letter, and the words had left a deep impression, though the pragmatist inside her forced her to try to put it behind her.   (source)
    pragmatist = someone concerned with practical matters
  • The strongest argument we can make to leaders of poor countries is not a moral one but a pragmatic one:   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters
  • Devon: Santa was here! He ate up all the cookies.
      LaTreya, more pragmatic: Holy cow. Look at the presents!   (source)
  • "He's cunning, brutal, and greedy, but he's also pragmatic. ... A tyrant like Prusias doesn't really care why you obey him; he only cares that you obey. But Astaroth is a fanatic. He wants true believers who share his ideals."   (source)
  • a pragmatic extension of the big dream   (source)
    pragmatic = practical -- especially where results triumph over ideal theory
  • She knew his image...cool, distant, pragmatic.   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters
  • This was part of his new pragmatism.   (source)
    pragmatism = concern with practical matters
  • A theoretician, a pragmatist, Doc Peret believed deeply in science. ... "The main thing," Doc once said, "is to find what works. That's real science—what works."   (source)
    pragmatist = someone concerned with practical matters
  • ROS: Why don't you go and have a look?
      GUIL: Pragmatism?!--is that all you have to offer?   (source)
    pragmatism = concern with practical matters -- especially where quick results and/or practical experience triumph over theory
  • She can find ways, not lie to you in words--and hurt Her conscience not at all because She hasn't any. Just Wisdom, utterly pragmatic.   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters
  • Your pragmatic way of thinking, adapted to the experimental, scientific approach, is lacking in most scholars.†   (source)
  • Or so explained the Count's father, with the pragmatic satisfaction of the scientifically minded.†   (source)
  • The comment sounded more pragmatic than romantic, and yet Langdon felt an unexpected flicker of attraction between them.†   (source)
  • Pragmatic.†   (source)
  • Mai is the ultimate pragmatist.†   (source)
  • The fair taught men and women steeped only in the necessary to see that cities did not have to be dark, soiled, and unsafe bastions of the strictly pragmatic.†   (source)
  • The Circle was a company popular on both sides of the aisle, known for its pragmatic positions on virtually every political issue, for its generous donations, and thus this left-of-center senator wouldn't get much support from her liberal colleagues—much less among the Republican ranks.†   (source)
  • Typically, they are more pragmatic.†   (source)
  • Promoting McDonald's to children was a clever, pragmatic decision.†   (source)
  • I'll appeal to the pragmatist in him.†   (source)
  • Estha said with his enduring pragmatism.†   (source)
  • I was raised by pragmatic parents who pictured their child as a future office worker of some sort, making a living of some sort.†   (source)
  • Whatever this place is, it has not needed to be as pragmatic as our city.†   (source)
  • He was not an ideologue, but a pragmatist, a man who saw change as necessary and inevitable.†   (source)
  • Seventeen years of Scholar pragmatism protest the existence of creatures that are supposed to he nothing but legend.†   (source)
  • Nasuada was more pragmatic about the subject.†   (source)
  • — (Or perhaps they are all just pragmatists: as any real-estate agent knows, the typical house isn't "charming" or "fantastic," but unless you say it is, no one will even bother to take a look.†   (source)
  • Mortenson turned for help to his pragmatic family friend Anne Beyersdorfer, a liberal Democrat who would later serve as a media consultant for Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful campaign for governor of California.†   (source)
  • Ever the optimist, he sired five children—my dad, "Jack," was the second eldest—and ever the pragmatist, he expected each one, the boys especially, to help out with the household income.†   (source)
  • He had to make an effort to recover his usual state of mind, which was realistic and pragmatic.†   (source)
  • Matron's faith was more pragmatic.†   (source)
  • He believes in that great false wisdom taught slaves and pragmatists alike, that white is right.†   (source)
  • Our two older brothers, so solid, so on top of everything, perhaps not intellectually but certainly pragmatically.†   (source)
  • This is where the pragmatist in JFK returns, overriding his libido.†   (source)
  • Trial-and-error is the only pragmatic rule of action.†   (source)
  • He welcomed the thorn bush, experimented with gnarled Japanese fig trees, retreated to pragmatic vegetables or spears of the succulent.†   (source)
  • "" The attitudes of a good many soldiers on this matter were more pragmatic than altruistic.†   (source)
  • Ser Kevan had always been solid, stolid, pragmatic; he had never heard him speak with such fervor before.†   (source)
  • This story, too, she had squirreled away for such a moment, relying on the theory that while a pragmatic mind like that of Hoss might appreciate the venom of the Antisemitismus in the abstract, that same mind's more primitive side would likely relish a touch of melodrama.†   (source)
  • I was too pragmatic and impatient to let such thoughts flog me into impotence, yet I sincerely needed a working philosophy on which to hang my hat.†   (source)
  • Be pragmatic.†   (source)
  • Those who were shocked at these apparent departures from his traditional position did not comprehend that Taft's conservatism contained a strong strain of pragmatism, which caused him to support intensive Federal activity in those areasthat he believed not adequately served by the private enterprise system.†   (source)
  • Pooh, he's a pragmatist-and that's the only resemblance he has to the Devil, son Roper; a pragmatist, the merest plumber.†   (source)
  • She said this in a pragmatic, almost indifferent, tone, and Mariam understood that this was a woman far past outrage.   (source)
    pragmatic = practical (without concern for niceties)
  • That Baboo was charmingly literal had always been clear, but in the woods he was a pragmatist.   (source)
    pragmatist = someone who is practical
  • John Rimbauer ... is a pragmatic man (which possibly accounts for his success in the oil business),   (source)
    pragmatic = concerned with practical matters
  • As you will see, this letter contains more than an element of confession, Mr. Markos, but there are also pragmatic matters that prompt this writing.  For those, I fear I will call upon your assistance, my friend.   (source)
  • I'm much more pragmatic now.   (source)
    pragmatic = practical
  • The world's ultimate pragmatist just shrugs and says: "NhI? ng gi minh mong it khi nao no Ay ra.†   (source)
  • That was a pragmatic, statistically valid way to look at themselves.†   (source)
  • The hallmarks of an extremely pragmatic killer.†   (source)
  • I am pragmatic to a fault—my friends could certainly tell the police that.†   (source)
  • Above all, the Frenchman was a pragmatist.†   (source)
  • But how could she translate something so intangible into a few clean, pragmatic sentences?†   (source)
  • The prosaic fact of the universe's existence single-handedly defeats the pragmatist and the cynic.†   (source)
  • "How do you sleep at night?" asked Max, incredulous at her callous pragmatism.†   (source)
  • It publicized its role as a pragmatic solution to the public health problems of prostitution.†   (source)
  • The pragmatists weighed in with equally forceful, if less elegant, expressions.†   (source)
  • He was a gradualist, a careful pragmatist.†   (source)
  • What can you do? a pragmatic voice asks.†   (source)
  • You're …. easily impressed …. sort of a …. pragmatic idealism.†   (source)
  • A generous thought, but his habit of disregarding his health hardly seemed like a way of expressing "pragmatic solidarity."†   (source)
  • His second phase, the metaphysical one, was tenuous and speculative, but this first phase, in which he simply taught rhetoric, was by all accounts solid and pragmatic and probably deserves to be judged on its own merits, independently of the second phase.†   (source)
  • They called this "pragmatic solidarity," a goofy term perhaps, but the great thing about it was that, if you really practiced it, you didn't have to define it, you could simply point at what had been accomplished.†   (source)
  • But part of it, in truth, was my strong streak of pragmatism—it was almost grotesque, how practical (self-serving?†   (source)
  • And yet the pragmatic side of Jeremy also realized that this was the kind of story that rarely came along, and he wanted to make the most of it.†   (source)
  • He was not an imaginative boy, and if Cort had intended to imply a moral, it was lost on him; he was pragmatic enough to believe that it might have been one of the few foolish statements he had ever heard Cort make.†   (source)
  • It's too pragmatic, too ugly, too neat.†   (source)
  • She recognized the manipulation for what it was, and while her emotions cried out for retribution on her behalf and that of sexually harassed women everywhere, her pragmatic side asserted itself.†   (source)
  • Lincoln hopes for a certain pragmatic lenience toward the southern states, rather than a draconian punishment, as his vice president, Andrew Johnson, favors.†   (source)
  • She was a practical, worldly, diffident woman, and her modern, pragmatic character was a serious obstacle to telepathy.†   (source)
  • Jack had this hero side to history, the idealistic view, but then he had that other side, the pragmatic side.†   (source)
  • John is pragmatic.†   (source)
  • Rearden stood looking after him, seeing, with a tearing smile of pity, what it was that the ex-relativist, the ex-pragmatist, the ex-amoralist was carrying away with him for consolation.†   (source)
  • Dick was not the "hard rock" he'd once thought him: "pragmatic," "virile," "a real brass boy"; he'd proven himself to be "pretty weak and shallow," "a coward."†   (source)
  • And while the president would be a fool to damage their marriage (and his career) by a brazen act of public infidelity, there are moments when this normally pragmatic man is helplessly self-destructive.†   (source)
  • She had to explain the scientific method she had used in order to overcome the senator's pragmatic resistance.†   (source)
  • By the summer of 1862, antislavery principle and pragmatism fused into a growing commitment to emancipation as both a means and an end of Union victory.†   (source)
  • Then, too, the severity of Dick's "wake-up" speech, the belligerence with which he proclaimed his theretofore concealed opinion of Perry's dreams and hopes-all this, perversity being what it is, appealed to Perry, hurt and shocked him but charmed him, almost revived his former faith in the tough, the "totally masculine," the pragmatic, the decisive Dick he'd once allowed to boss him.†   (source)
  • He talked animatedly about Grameen's work, and it was exactly the kind of pragmatic grassroots effort that she yearned to join.†   (source)
  • I want to know about your wife's money because …. well, because I'm fascinated by the methodology …. by the pragmatic accommodation by which you wave-of-the-future boys are going to take over.†   (source)
  • One of the groups that has increasingly focused on women for these pragmatic reasons is Heifer International, an aid organization based in Arkansas that gives cows, goats, chickens, or other animals to farmers in poor countries.†   (source)
  • That pragmatic "harm reduction" model is preferred by many aid groups, because it allows health workers to pass out condoms and curb the spread of AIDS, and it permits access to brothels so that they can more easily be checked for underage girls.†   (source)
  • They pad your body and arm and neck and put a steel guard on your eyes and nose and across your ears—this is not like encountering a pragmatic Marxist in the jungle.†   (source)
  • …were employed in making fine clothes out of the fancy goods snatched on the station ramp from condemned Jews, expert cobblers and workers in high-quality leather, gardeners with green thumbs, technicians and engineers possessing certain specialist capabilities, and a handful like Sophie with combined linguistic and secretarial gifts) were spared extermination for the raw pragmatic reason that their talents came as close to being invaluable as that word had any such meaning in the camp.†   (source)
  • She had planned to enlist a noted instructor in survival swimming to teach the kids this pragmatic art in the early part of the morning.†   (source)
  • A bus seemed like the most pragmatic form of transportation, but when I inquired about prices I was continually staggered by exorbitant figures.†   (source)
  • She longs to write and act in a play where the heroine combines the pragmatism of Scarlett O'Hara, the wit of Falstaff, and the destiny of Ophelia.†   (source)
  • It was quicker—honoring the pragmatics of fear—than pretending she shouldn't think this way.†   (source)
  • As it was, it treed me for three days, which did my figure good and gave me time to think over the philosophy, ethics, and pragmatics of self-preservation.†   (source)
  • Architecture is primarily a utilitarian conception, and the problem is to elevate the principle of pragmatism into the realm of esthetic abstraction.†   (source)
  • The leader of the profession—on a mean scale, there was no grand scale left in anything—was Gordon L. Prescott, Chairman of the Council of American Builders; Gordon L. Prescott who lectured on the transcendental pragmatism of architecture and social planning, who put his feet on tables in drawing rooms, attended formal dinners in knickerbockers and criticized the soup aloud.†   (source)
  • For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life in the hope of discovering something more about it, of discerning in its maddest writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him,—the key to its mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile he had projected a new work: An Attempt at a Uniform and Pragmatic Classification of the Neuroses and Psychoses, Based on an Examination of Fifteen Hundred Pre-Krapaelin and Post-Krapaelin Cases as they would be Diagnosed in the Terminology of the Different Contemporary Schools—and another sonorous paragraph—Together with a Chronology of Such Subdivisions of Opinion as Have Arisen Independently.†   (source)
  • At first Philip hesitated on account of the expense, but they reckoned it out; and it seemed (they were so anxious to have a studio of their own that they calculated pragmatically) that the cost would not be much greater than that of living in a hotel.†   (source)
  • "What you are preaching is pragmatism," Settembrini responded, "and you need only transfer it to the political realm to perceive how totally destructive it is.†   (source)
  • This was the tone of thought chiefly sanctioned by Mrs. Dollop, the spirited landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane, who had often to resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had "come up" in her mind.†   (source)
  • One of them--his name was Stick-to-the-right--perceived in my face, I suppose, a species of sympathy and almost admiration, which, to my own great surprise, I could not help feeling for this pragmatic couple.†   (source)
  • Perhaps it was an attitude they shared, a pragmatism that regarded the occult as merely a collection of phenomena like the weather.†   (source)
  • Noah Webster, always the pragmatic reformer, denounced it so long ago as 1783.†   (source)
  • I hope it will inspire younger men and women, the only ones who can be inspired, to have a try at Theodore, or Militarism; Jane, or Pacifism; at So-and-So, the Pragmatist or the Freudian.†   (source)
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