Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form.

I chose Sony Classics, not just because of their practical experience, not just because of their wisdom in marketing, but mainly because of their integrity.

Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

This ceremony and the intellectual aura associated with the Nobel Prizes have grown from the wisdom of a practical chemist who wrote a remarkable will.

I used to love to create outfits, and I still do - I just don't have the time. How can you wear one thing and never wear it again? Even my wedding dress - I had a dress made that I could wear again. I'm a child of the depression, so I'm very, very practical.

My life motto is basically to lower your standards and expectations so you're never disappointed and never put any trust in anything, and I try to prepare for the day that I wake up, and everyone I know is like, 'LOL JK best long-running practical joke ever', so I've never really let myself freak out or get too excited about anything.

When you're a kid, I think you want to be a film star. And I'm not as enamoured with that any more. The reality of that life is a lot of travel, and a lot of being away, which is impractical because I have four children, so I don't want to be away that much, not the other side of the world away.

If someone needs help, I don't do tea and sympathy, but I'm honest and practical - that's how I was brought up.

I tried for a short time to be something I wasn't, and had no success with it. It's a practical solution to just be yourself.

Musclemen grow on trees. They can tense their muscles and look good in a mirror. So what? I'm interested in practical strength that's going to help me run, jump, twist, punch.

Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke... and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research.

No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of mother-wit, either in science or in practical life.

Truth is of no practical value to mankind save as it affects terrestrial phenomena, hence the discoveries of science should be concealed or glossed over wherever they conflict with orthodoxy.

At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a noble profession.

After Fergie and Prince Andrew honeymooned at Le Touessrok in Mauritius, Bobby, my late husband, and I were first to stay in their suite. We enjoyed the benefits - all the spoils and the special luxuries. We practically had our own private beach, and it was most romantic.

The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect: as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name.

The tension between the essence of spiritual teachings and the harmful fundamentalism that often arises in the name of religion is an issue that has engaged my mind practically as far back as I can remember.

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.

A lot of people think, 'I'll give acting or poetry or filmmaking a try. And if it doesn't work out I'll go get a law degree, do something else that's more practical.' For me I went the reverse way. I lived the back-up plan.

There's a fierce practicality and empiricism which the whole imaginative, lyrical aspect of poetry comes from.

Most women have jobs that require them to leave the house. A cat is actually a perfect pet. You get the love and companionship of a creature covered in fur, and you don't have to take it for a walk, and it can feed itself. Less maintenance. Surely any man can appreciate the practicality of this choice.

Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.

There's a lot of external issues that have a ripple effect on a family and a lot of internal, practical parenting challenges that families are trying to overcome every day. Children become the silent witnesses of such worry within their families.