Quotes About Idealism

Politics is a romantic search for the good and the true and the beautiful.

It is cynicism, and not idealism, that is generally the mark of youthful immaturity, or rather it is the cynic who is generally the most foolish romantic.

We remain in the Romantic cycle initiated by Rousseau: liberal idealism canceled by violence, barbarism, disillusionment and cynicism.

A romantic striving for an impossible ideal.

People were destined for one another; that's the romantic idea that young girls have, and I guess part of me still believes it.

I used to think if it wasn't possible to be a family man and a totally dedicated artist, I'd rather be the former. I'm an idealist and a romantic.

Okay, so maybe I'm romantic... but somebody is supposed to be romantic. Some warrior is supposed to go to war against the imperial forces of cynicism and irony. I am a sentimental soldier.

I tended to be more a romantic than a realist, and chose blind faith over cold logic.

I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant.

You're the only one more impractical than he was, she said; you should know this is not a country for dreamers.

One of the great things about young people is that they do question, that they do care deeply about justice, and they they have open minds.

Success"—if at all—is only temporary, and idealism is always flawed and fleeting. Hence the abiding need to engage in politics.

A negative universal politics, after all, aims at facing and working through our deadlocks, which always already confront us, even after "success." There is no triumph after victory, only more work, more struggle, more failure. "Success"—if at all—is only temporary, and idealism is always flawed and fleeting. Hence the abiding need to engage in politics.

The young people are the most active and vital force in society. They are the most eager to learn and the least conservative in their thinking. This is especially so in the era of socialism.

Don't you love my idealism? My hypocrisy? My willingness to sound as loving and naive as possible? At least I know that I don't know anything at all. I can admit it. Can you? Can you look yourself in the mirror in the morning and admit that you are no different from every other bundle of bones on this planet? And maybe the only things that make you different are your hands, the way you touch things, and what happens to them.

an Orwellian backdrop for a Rockwellian world.

As Stephen Spender put it, "Music is the most powerful of all the idealist drugs except religion.

The '60s redefined narcissism as idealism.

The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable.

The purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge.

In the scientific world I find just that disinterested devotion to great ends that I hope will spread at last through the entire range of human activity.

idealism, that gaudy coloring matter of passion, fades when it is brought beneath the trenchant white light of knowledge. Ideals, like mountains, are best at a distance.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.