Idealism Quotes

Leadership is Idealism in Action.

The actual well seen is ideal.

The real battlefield is the realm of ideas.

Idealism is the death of the body and the imagination. All but freedom, utter freedom, is death

You cannot chase a dollar and an ideal at the same time.

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

We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?

It took years of wear and tear before idealism crumbled like so much bric-a-brac.

Twenty-year-olds have a kind of emotional idealism about relationships and about the world that enables them to say, 'No, you lied to me. Goodbye.' When they see wickedness, they walk away.

Pursuit of the approximate can conclude. Not so pursuit of the absolute.

The idealist regards facts as provisional.

Idealism is based on big ideas. And, as anybody who has ever been asked "What's the big idea?" knows, most big ideas are bad ones.

The days of idealism had gone. Only life was left.

The single most amazing phenomenon is the discrediting of idealism.

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

Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential.

One great function of the arts is to keep ideals alive in a culture that does not yet realize them.

Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.

The Gospel worldview equips the artist with a unique combination of optimism and realism about life.

Idealism and realism meet in the actual.

I like workplace shows and White House was a very glamorous workplace to set a show in; it appealed to a sense of romanticism and idealism that I have.

An age deficient in idealism has ever been one of immorality and superficial attainment, since without the sense of ideas, nobility of character becomes of rare attainment, if possible.

The president [Barack Obama] laid out his vision for foreign policy in a way that we hadn't heard before. And it could be summed up, I think, in two words - realistic idealism.

Insight that dawns slowly seems to me to have more lasting effects than a fitful idealism, which is unlikely to hold out for long.

My idealism has not abated, but I have witnessed it withering away nationwide, to the point where at least among the young, to have ideals is akin to being blinkered and oldfashioned.

Idealism in the young, I guess I'm saying, is curiosity as well as goodness trying to express itself.

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 great German idealists from Kant to Hegel saw this idealism or nihilism as a reductio ad absurdum of any philosophy, and so they struggled by all conceptual means to avoid it.

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

I fear that, with our current veneration for the natural and the real, we have arrived at the opposite pole to all idealism, and have landed in the region of the waxworks.

There is no realism without an element of idealism.

We are a purely idealistic Nation but let no one confuse our idealism with weakness.

Idealism is the highest form of reason.

Often my characters have some kind of idealism or grand belief that they're pursuing.

There is the expectation that a younger generation has the opportunity to redeem the crimes and failings of their elders and would have the strength and idealism to do so.

Any idealism is a proper subject for art.

Ideals are great in theory ... but they don't work too well in real life.

I see history as really cyclical in terms of the intense idealism, and the desire to create a better life outside of societal norms.

Everything is cyclical. Historical eras go through times of intense cynicism, broken by periods of intense idealism.

A dead martyr is just another corpse.

A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism.

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.

Cynicism has all the smart words on it's side; idealism uses a nursery school dictionary.

She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance.

Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism!

The Church needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity, so that she can always be young in the Spirit.

We all have idealism. We think we're healthy and then, all of a sudden, one day, you have cancer. The truth has a mind of its own.

Idealism has devolved into madness.

Every materialist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist.