Anthony Trollope Quotes

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Life had stepped into the place of theory.

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

A theory must be tempered with reality.

There are those who spend their lives studying it and those who spend their lives doing it.

Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.

Life is so unlike theory.

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

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

How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory.

On Pragmatism: It's all very well in theory but it doesn't work in practice

He that in the ordinary affairs of life would admit of nothing but direct plain demonstration would be sure of nothing in this world but of perishing quickly.

The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.

Dream dreams and write them aye, but live them first.

Theories have nothing to do with life.

An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.

I am pragmatic. That which works, works, and theory can go screw itself. However, my pragmatism also extends to maintainability, which is why I also want it done well.

Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action. (There is no reality except in action.)

The dreams get anchored in aged wisdom not some utopian fantasy.

No policy is worth anything outside of reality.

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it." "Are you saying we shouldn't hope?" "I'm saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open!

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

Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil- experience.