1. realist - Noun
2. realist - Adjective
One who believes in realism; esp., one who maintains that generals, or the terms used to denote the genera and species of things, represent real existences, and are not mere names, as maintained by the nominalists.
An artist or writer who aims at realism in his work. See Realism, 2.
Source: Webster's dictionaryAn idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. Sydney J. Harris
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. William Arthur Ward
In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. David Ben-Gurion
Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of. Bertolt Brecht
The child is a realist in every domain of thought, and it is therefore natural that in the moral sphere he should lay more stress on the external, tangible element than on the hidden motive. Jean Piaget
Why are we born? We're born eventually to die, of course. But what happens between the time we're born and we die? We're born to live. One is a realist if one hopes. Studs Terkel