Quotes About Idealism

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

Funneling anger is risky business. Anger is a powerful fuel, and one could argue that much social change has resulted in no small part because of angry voices. In my half century of living, however, I have seen too many activists become frustrated and worn out—made callous by failed attempts to make change, with their idealistic passion devolving into seething anger, or worse, thick hatred.

Despite what it says, science is actually just a philosophy – the philosophy of materialism and empiricism – but it refuses to commit itself to this. It refuses to state why materialism is right and idealism is wrong. It refuses to state why empiricism is right and rationalism is wrong. And if it ever actually got into any of this, if it dared, it would be intellectually destroyed. That's why it completely avoids the whole issue.

Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows.

People came in wagons and on horseback from many miles around to festival-like meetings from Ashtabula to Youngstown, Massillon to Leesburg, Salem to Munson. They had tapped into the grass roots of the free-labor militancy and Christian idealism of the Western Reserve.

The road to utopia is paved with the corpses of freedom lovers

When you try to build Heaven on earth you end up building ghetto's of Hell

have learned that the process of teaching and learning, of communication, involves movement, back and forth: the one who is healed and the one who is healing constantly change places. As we begin to understand ourselves, we begin to understand others. It is part of the process of moving from idealism to reality, from the sky to the earth. We do not have to be perfect or to deny our emotions.

There's nothing more frightening than a half-baked do-gooder who knows nothing of the world but takes it upon himself to tell the world what's good for it.

Do not hang a young man whose only crime is fidelity to his ideal

Right, I'll bet he's another vegetarian. Another Unitarian vegetarian who holds up peace signs at street corners every Saturday afternoon and aspires to live in a Mongolian yurt.

The image of the tragic artist who lays down his tools rather than fall short of his impeccable ideals holds no romance for me. I don't see this path as heroic. I think it's far more honorable to stay in the game - even if you're objectively losing the game - than to excuse yourself from participation because of your delicate sensibilities. But in order to stay in the game, you must let go of your fantasy of perfection.

You are an idealist, which means that you are destined to be disappointed, and perhaps even wounded. You seek a gospel of benevolence and miracle, which leaves no room for the sorrows of existence. You are like William Paley, arguing that the perfection of every design in the universe is proof of God's love for us.

You are an idealist, which means that you are destined to be disappointed, and perhaps even wounded. You seek a gospel of benevolence and miracle, which leaves no room for the sorrows of existence.

It's strange, but I find myself more disillusioned by a man who has such easily persuaded views than I would be by one whose views were entirely opposite but passionately held. Isn't that quixotic of me?

The history of socialistic ventures, shows that ordinary men are seldom capable of pure ideal altruism for any considerable time together, and that the exceptions are to be found only when masterful fervour of a small band of religious enthusiasts makes material concerns to count for nothing in comparison with the higher faith.

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.

Les hommes peuvent bien s'entretuer jusqu'au dernier, ils ne tueront jamais la vie. La vie a raison des hommes, elle passe outre. [...] À mon insu je pense aux mères yougoslaves. Je comprends leur obstination à procréer, au milieu des bombes. Je comprends leur volonté de tuer la mort, leur idéalisme farouche. Malgré la guerre, ou grâce à elle. Car la maternité n'est-elle pas aussi devoir de restitution et de transmission, acte de mémoire et de foi?

In the 1950s, the average person saw science as something that solved problems. With the advent of nuclear weapons and pollution, the idealistic aura around scientific research has been replaced by cynicism.

As a student, I was a total jhalli who used to wear torn denims, faded kurtis, kohled eyes and thought that I was the coolest girl ever! We were a bunch of students who used to do social-issue-based street plays and believed that we could bring about a change in the world.

Idealism that makes no distinction between areas where our national interest lies and those from which it is remote does no good for America. The weariness of the post-Versailles, post-Korea, post-Vietnam eras is never far from the national mood.

When you think back to your first kiss, your hair is perfect and she was wearing a cool outfit. We remember it with restraint and we remember it with style. We remember it as idealistically as you can think.

Political movements always belong to the young.