Hans-Georg Gadamer Quotes

We have to learn how to work within the limits that are possible, not what is desirable.

You can theorise about the options you have but in reality they are very specific.

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.

We have to stick to basics. Sometimes, you expect that miracles will happen, but it does not work out that way.

We will not think noble because we are not noble. We will not live in beautiful harmony because there is no such thing in this world, nor should there be. We promise only to do our best and to live out our lives. Dear God, that's all we can promise in truth.

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.

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

I've found that people who look at things as they are, and not as they wish them to be, are the ones who succeed.

In reality, I don't think that many of the policies we've attempted to apply to deal with it are going to have any serious effect.

In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.

I think it's good that you test the reality that surrounds you in your neighbourhood with the reality as it is in other parts of the world; you come up with a better judgment. I'm not meaning that literally you can only do that and not go to school at all but in terms of enrichment of a personality I think it's a fabulous thing.

The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane. Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.

We never get upset over what happens. Never. We get upset because of preconceived ideas as to what we think should happen, what we want to happen. When our preference clashes with the reality, we get hurt. Rid yourself of all preconceived ideas as to what should happen. You are then at peace whatever happens.

Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.

But once you get down to reality, there's no one to play her and there's no movie. It would be ridiculous.

I think that Donald Trump successfully mobilized a big chunk of America to vote for him and he's going to win. He has won. He's going to be the next president and regardless of what experience or assumptions he brought to the office, this office has a way of waking you up and those - those aspects of his positions or predispositions that don't match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself.

I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it; indeed, especially when one doesn't like it.

My brother, who's my acting coach, he can be like, "That sucked, Chloe. You need to pick that up. You're not thinking right now. Seriously, think." It's a good harsh reality, because my family keeps me very grounded.

I cannot invest the way I want the world to be; I have to invest the way the world is.

I was pretty far gone, but not so far gone that I thought anyone with half a toehold in reality would think what we were doing was a good idea.

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

The most marvelous experience of life is to transform life according to reality, not imagination.

There is such a difference between life and theory.

You look like a ghost," Bailey says. He can think of no better way to describe it. "You appear the same way to me, so which of us is real?

Reality is always kinder than your thinking.