Quotes About Idealism

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

The best things in life must have been left behind in the 60's Peace and love.

When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.

He had learned in Vietnam there were three groups of people who got you killed—pencil pushers, amateurs, and idealists.

Everyone is an idealist, until the issue affects them. I knew I was going to do what I had to do.

This might be a conceit of government officials, but there's the idea that maybe you can make a difference. It's a conceit. Maybe it's unhealthy. We all believed we could make a difference.

The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.

I don't defend the idea of universal love. It has never existed and will never exist.

Good teachers have joined Presidency from different parts of the country and even abroad. We have got idealistic teachers, and we are relying on their idealism. But state universities pay their teachers less than the central ones. If salary is not on a par with central institutes, teachers would tend to leave for those places.

This is why universities, and civil society more generally, are so important for a democracy like ours, founded on a genuine idealism that we have a hard time holding on to. They provide a space to question whatever we are doing in the name of things we say we believe in or might believe in.

For the establishment, philosophy is both an elitist and an idealist discipline: In high school, it is a compulsory subject; at university, they teach the idealist line. They are conducting a conversation with themselves.

At university, my generation were ready to fight, but we didn't really have anything to fight for.

When I was a baby feminist, leading feminist thinkers were insisting that if women ran the world, there would be no sadism or war.

Imagine a world, if you will, where crime does not exist. A startling proposition that seems outlandish, but our imaginations, of course, need not be bounded by the rules and restrictions imposed by realism. It would be a world, one might suppose, where equality reigned, where the thought of violence was so alien that it need not be practiced.

I think a lot of people start out full of idealism and fresh ideas. And then a lot of times, being re-elected becomes more important than staying true to your principles.

There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream.

All the arguments urged by Berkeley and Hume against the existence of a material world, are grounded on this principle, That we do not perceive external objects themselves, but certain images or ideas in our own minds

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.

All the dreamers in all the world are dizzy in the noodle.

Americans are raised to believe that anything is possible in America if you are pure of heart and willing to work hard, which is nonsense, and that anyone can become president, which is even more foolish, and that free markets always make the right decision, which is nuts.

Olive Ann describes Sanna as 'a perfectionist and a worrier.' She is obsessed with the idea of finding happiness, and for her, as Olive ann wrote in her notes for the novel, 'happiness means being first with somebody, having perfect, loving children...The theme of Sanna is disillusionment,' Olive Ann wrote. 'Her life is the pursuit of happiness and perfection, but she finds happiness and perfection impossible to obtain-her idea of happiness is constant joy, no changes.

Your brother is young enough to believe that the past still exists, he said. That the injustices within it await his remedy. Perhaps you believe this also?