"Medical researchers don't know much about head lice because they don't much care. The reason that they don't much care is, paradoxically, that they know a lot. That is, they know one important thing: there is no evidence that head lice transmit disease."

Pragmatism, Science, Ignorance, Health, Research

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"Medical researchers don't know much about head lice because they don't much care. The reason that they don't much care is, paradoxically, that they know a lot. That is, they know one important thing: there is no evidence that head lice transmit disease."

Exlpore more Pragmatism quotes

"Anything was better than nothing. Half-full was better than empty. Ignorance was the lowest form of humiliation and suffering."

Becca Fitzpatrick, American Novelist

Pragmatism, Ignorance, Hope, Survival, Acceptance

"All theories are legitimate, no matter. What matters is what you do with them."

Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian Poet

Pragmatism, Theory, Action, Application, Idea

"Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum."

P. J. O'Rourke, American Comedian

Pragmatism, Politics, Necessity, Frustration, Power

"Her philosophy was, if it had a pulse, it could be killed. I didn't really have a philosophy, but I could see how talking with the school director would be difficult for her. If he said something she didn't like, chopping him to tiny pieces wouldn't exactly help me get into the school."

Ilona Andrews, American Writer

Pragmatism, Violence, Philosophy, Humor, Contrast

"The really essential factors of success in any undertaking are money and opportunity, and as a rule, the man who can make the first can make the second."

Dorothy L. Sayers, British Author

Pragmatism, Success, Opportunity, Money, Initiative

"Georgie, stop trying to resurrect the shoes. They were never alive in the first place."

Ilona Andrews, American Writer

Pragmatism, Humor, Perspective, Absurdity, Realism

"You're just a huge romantic at heart, aren't you?""If there's cash involved, I'm anything you want me to be."

Jasper Fforde, British Novelist

Pragmatism, Money, Identity, Irony

"Honesty is the best policy. But insanity is a hell of a lot more effective in court. So your set, McMullen."

Lois Greiman, American Author

Pragmatism, Honesty, Absurdity, Irony, Justice

"A lie that could help someone focus on his life was better than a hundred simple truths."

Faraaz Kazi, Indian Author

Pragmatism, Lies, Truth, Focus, Ethics

"I've found that lifting the lid with your foot is the most thorough and least gross path to two minutes of peace of mind."

Elle Lothlorien, American Novelist

Pragmatism, Realism, Humor, Observation

Explore more quotes by P. J. O'Rourke

"Computers seem a little too adaptively flexible, like the strange natives, odd societies, and head cases we study in the social sciences. There's more opposable thumb in the digital world than I care for; it's awfully close to human."

Technology

"The great majority of Baghdad is a slum - a lot of it's new, but it's still slum. It's usually this concrete-block, one-room design with a door and a window, arranged one-up, one-down, often with a shop with nothing in it on the first floor, and then a one-room apartment above it. There's street after street after street of that stuff."

Society

"I do have to travel a lot for speaking engagements."

Experience

"America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased."

America

"Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely."

Humor

"If death weren't around to 'finalize' the Darwinian process, we'd all still be amoebas."

Science

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

Politics

"Never fight an inanimate object."

Fight

"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

Will

"The car provided Americans with an enviable standard of living. You could not get a steady job with high wages and health and retirement benefits working on the General Livestock Corporation assembly line putting udders on cows."

Industry