Malcolm X Quotes

A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant.

Truth is what works.

Advise not on what is pleasant, but what is most useful.

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

Usefulness depends on tractability.

There's no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn't exist.

We have to deal with the world as we find it. The world of what it takes to get this done.

I'm generally a very pragmatic person: that which works, works.

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

It's really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

Two points that are very important points to remember and ask: Is it real and does it work?

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

That is what all of us must learn to do in the United States; to limit objectives, to get ourselves away from the absolute, to find out what is within our powers.

Government is the art of the momentarily feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

I learned over time that you do not go for the perfect solution….You do what is doable and then you want to try and do a little bit more.

What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now.

Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory

A brute force solution that works is better than an elegant solution that doesn't work.

It makes sense to work towards a better world, but it doesn't make any sense to have illusions about what the real world is.

You can do anything you want, as long as it works.

To use is necessary. And if you can't be used, then you're useless.

Why not? That's a good reason for almost anything - a bit used perhaps, but still quite serviceable.

The question shouldn't be what we ought to do, but what we can do.

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