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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."



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


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


"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."


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


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


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


"I want to make this world perfect."


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


"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."


"Sadly enough, individual liberty remains the ideal of revolutionary thinkers even in the 21st Century."


"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."


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


"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."


"I prefer truth-based entertaining idealism."


"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."


"That's the thing you girls never get. It doesn't matter if you just woke up, or just got done bawling, or just finished your make-up. When a guy's all love-sick over a chick, she looks exactly the same to him all the time: perfect."


"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. . ."


"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."


"What you call life is but a dream, and reality is relative."


"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were."


"Such views the youthful Bard allure,But, heedless of the following gloom,He deems their colours shall endure'Till peace go with him to the tomb.-And let him nurse his fond deceit,And what if he must die in sorrow!Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,Though grief and pain may come tomorrow?"


"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."
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