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Idealism Quotes


"Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism."


"Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world."


"The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous."


"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."


"I want to make this world perfect."


"Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals."


"If you didn't have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?"


"None could be the most perfect. If indeed any, it is only perfect."


"A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."


"Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today -- gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious vying with his neighbor? I am certain this is not a vain hope and that the day will come soon."


"Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world."


"The select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest."


"Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem."


"I prefer truth-based entertaining idealism."


"An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous."


"For it cannot be denied that all over the world and in all ages there are beings who are perceived to be extraordinary, charming, and appealing, and whom many honor as benevolent spirits, because they make one think of a more beautiful, a freer, a more winged life than the one we lead."


"The young all have the same dream: to save the world. Some quickly forget this dream, convinced that there are more important things to do, like having a family, earning money, traveling, and learning a foreign language. Others, though, decide that it really is possible to make a difference in society and to shape the world we will hand on to future generations."


"Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold... brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds."


"There was something better in life than this rubbish, if only he could get to it-love-nobility-big spaces where passion clasped peace, spaces no science could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend. . ."
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