Vladimir Lenin Quotes

Principles ... become modified in practice, by facts.

When the terrain differs from the map, you have to go with the terrain.

We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

Life is so unlike theory.

I think we ought to take the world as it is and not as we would like to have it.

Real life is far more complicated than fiction.

Theoretical principals must sometimes give way for the sake of practical advantages.

The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

We need realism to deal with reality.

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

Theories and grand ideas are important, but they seldom unfold as planned.

It is the misfortune of those who are concerned in conducting human affairs that, however pure and capacious their own conceptions may be, they must accommodate themselves to the circumstances with which they are environed and use the instruments that are within their reach.

I've found you don't have to make anything up. Reality is so complex and fascinating and horrible and beautiful.

You got to adjust to how your life is.

The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.

Beliefs should be like the rest of life, and real life isn't rules but learning and adaption.

When the fact doesn't meet the theory then let go the theory.

Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought.

You have to look life straight in the eye. De-mystify your world. Can you really afford to believe magic is for real? Not when time is concerned.

Ideals are great in theory ... but they don't work too well in real life.

Don't fight a fact, deal with it.

In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.

It was good, it was bad. But it was real, and that's all you have.

We overreached our decision power. Sometimes our decisions have to fit the reality of the outside world.