Quotes About Idealism

He was one of these men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet.

A man given to vice is always an idealist.

The evils of envy and hatred masquerading as humanitarian idealism had darkened his life from its outset, stamping him as a man quick to search for the reality behind the expression of fine sentiments.

Perhaps the book's greatest weakness is its romantic depiction of President Kennedy as a kind of knight in shining armor.

Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.

Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare.

Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination

Don't piss on my Utopia.

The sea-green Incorruptible [Robespierre].

I liked the clear morality of 1941, when you had no doubt about good and evil. There was a lot of idealism, people fighting for a cause. People are searching for morality today.

There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity.

But then I was young, and to be young means to undertake to demolish the world and to have the gall to wish to erect a new and better one in its place.

The Lord preserve us from sainthood

The flawlessly beautiful were flawlessly happy, weren't they?

It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds

The problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the times there were simply "ways", none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on. He had always admired his wife's idealism, her belief that the world could be made better, could be made orderly, could perhaps even be made perfect. For the first time, he wondered if the same held true for him

He had always admired his wife's idealism, her belief that the world could be made better,

Izzy had the heart of a radical, but she had the experience of a fourteen-year-old living in the suburban Midwest.

To Lexie, the world seemed nearly perfect, and her fantasies were her real life with all the colors dialed up.

That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.

the dreams of childhood - it's airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond; so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown...

there was a little too much of the best intentions going on

The hippies saw it and lived it for a few shining moments, but the old stories were too strong. Instead of the hippies pulling us all into a new world, we dragged them back into ours. The

When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, Idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.