Quotes About Idealism

I try not to be too realistic. It's better to be over-positive.

The acceptance of certain realities doesn't preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

The great thing about rock n' roll is, if you want to fight - like, fight the system, fight the man, fight the government, fight the people in front of you - it's Don Quixote all over again. You're really chasing windmills.

I was young, so that I desired high things only.

Esse est percipi.

If an imaginative boy has a sufficiently rich mother who has intelligence, personal grace, dignity of character without harshness, and a cultivated sense of the best art of her time to enable her to make her house beautiful, she sets a standard for him against which very few women can struggle, besides effecting for him a disengagement of his affections, his sense of beauty, and his idealism from his specifically sexual impulses.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

I used to think we were going to win in the '60s. Nixon went out and I thought we won.

As a child, I wanted to be a lawyer because I thought lawyers and the law were wonderful. But they are more wonderful, I think, than I had thought.

My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.

The hippie era was a wonderful time because we still believed we could make the world a better place.

It was a wonderful time to be young. The 1960s didn't end until about 1976. We all believed in Make Love, Not War. We were idealistic innocents, despite the drugs and sex.

I've always felt like if I was going to be born any other time that it would be during the '60s or definitely during Woodstock.

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

I had these kind of unrealistic expectations that were fueled by romantic comedies, and it has both helped me and hurt me in many ways. It helped me because, in general, they've made me hopeful. I just figure things will eventually work out for me. But nobody is like any Tom Hanks character. Nobody is Hugh Grant. No one is Meg Ryan!

Che is not just a potent figure of protest, but the idealistic, questioning kid who exists in every society and every time.

It's time for greatness -- not for greed. It's a time for idealism -- not ideology. It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action.

The aspiration to save the world is a morbid phenomenon of today's youth.

That becomes the revolution, to be idealistic enough that you think you can change the world, and what you find is you can't change anything but yourself.

My dear Guiliano, he said, how is it that you and Don Croce do not join together to rule Sicily? He has the wisdom of age, you have the idealism of youth.

When you start looking for purity in politics, you eventually get to unreality.

Había oído y leído que la política, como todo lo que se vincula al poder, saca a veces a la luz lo mejor del ser humano —el idealismo, el heroísmo, el sacrificio, la generosidad—, pero, también, lo peor, la crueldad, la envidia, el resentimiento, la soberbia.

To me the way they were used, particularly the way their idealism and loyalty were exploited by leaders who themselves had lost faith in the effort, is a stunning betrayal. It is a lasting American tragedy and disgrace.