For many people, the reluctance to embrace Christianity is as practical as it is intellectual. They want to know what the benefits of Christianity are, or what's in it for them.
I take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: 'Checkout Time is 18 years.'
The political Right is particularly vehement when it comes to compromise. Conservatives are now strongly swayed by the Tea Party movement, whose clarion call is a refusal to compromise regardless of the practical consequences.
It was very useful to learn the history, the theory, and the art of building from a practical background.
In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.
If I had undertaken the practical direction of military operations, and anything went amiss, I feared that my conscience would torture me, as guilty of the fall of my country, as I had not been familiar with military tactics.
School was just kind of something where it was like, 'Um, I guess I should get my bachelor's.' My mind is always geared towards the practical.
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
Obama still has work to do with the vision thing. Convincing voters that he has a credible, practical plan to turn the nation around is a process, not a speech.
The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes.
Nearly all the powerful people of this age are unbelievers, the best of them in doubt and misery, the most in plodding hesitation, doing as well as they can, what practical work lies at hand.
How Americans restore trust may be an existential question for their country, then, but it's ultimately a practical one: What U.S. society needs to answer it in the coming years aren't lamentations but practical measures, especially among the emerging generations that will define America's future.
My struggle has been to return painting to the tangible object, which is like returning the personality to touching and feeling the world around it, to offset the tendency to vagueness and abstraction. To remind people of practical activity, to suggest the sense and not to escape from the senses.
I was a writer first, and knew I'd be a storyteller at age seven. But since my parents are very practical, they urged me to go into a profession that would be far more secure, so I went to medical school.
My mom, through my dad, rented the apartment next door to his... he had the lease on both places. But then, she would dress up and act like his maid... a practical maid. No fantasies.
Blogs are amazing, and I'm so grateful to mine for giving me such a great platform to explore other ideas, but it's just not practical to scroll through 30 pages of blog to find a dinner recipe.
The practical reality of managing cars in the family - I do 36-month leases. I think they're horrible investments. And you want to give them back after their warranty is over.
In the practical world of computing, it is rather uncommon that a program, once it performs correctly and satisfactorily, remains unchanged forever.
I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.
I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic.
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
The Faculty of Technology of Tohoku University is renowned for its tradition of practical studies.
Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.
We need to tap the resource of current and retiring science and math professionals that have both content mastery and the practical experience to serve as effective teachers.
We need a romantic illusion to embark on relationships in the first place. After that, they survive or fail for other, more practical reasons.
The moment is ripe for an experienced businessman to talk practical, prudent economics to the electorate - which is why Mitt Romney's political fortunes are steadily being resurrected from the grave.
I had this 'War and Peace' thing of wanting to experience war as a kind of incredible human enterprise. I even applied to Officer Candidate School. Then the practical side of me kicked in and I thought, 'I really don't want to get drafted.' So I went down to the physical and checked every psychological disorder and drug on the medical history form.
The Thirties are a great mix of everyday glamour and something a bit more practical.
The thing is, I'm a very practical filmmaker.
People go to see beautiful paintings to see how much they cost. Wow. The practical value is that it shows you what the human spirit can do.
If there's going to be an SAT, it's probably practical to invest in a book or perhaps in a course, but I'm sorry to say, I went to some classes that my kids took and it was clear in school that what they were doing was just SAT training.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke.
A practical botanist will distinguish at the first glance the plant of the different quarters of the globe and yet will be at a loss to tell by what marks he detects them.
The practical case for manned spacef light gets ever-weaker with each advance in robots and miniaturisation - indeed, as a scientist or practical man, I see little purpose in sending people into space at all. But as a human being, I'm an enthusiast for manned missions.
A suit is just a suit: a practical garment, not a ceremonial robe; it can be worn out to dinner with friends or for a visit to an art gallery. Its beauty and craftsmanship are utterly wasted if you think of it as something magical and symbolic.
I may not have a practical mind, but it's very fixated on concrete things. I like detail.
