Idealism Quotations

To me, one of the best faces America has ever projected is the face of a Peace Corps volunteer. That face symbolizes this country: young, curious, brimming with idealism and hope - and a real, honest compassion.

He 's ruthless only because of his ideals. Unfortunately he doesn't succeed. The thing fails and gets out of hand and takes charge of him. Idealism is the only excuse he could have and it's a great excuse.

Even when Darwin's teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its scientific, materialist core, its teaching concerning the evolution of living nature, was antagonistic to the idealism that reigned in biology.

For a spy novelist like me, the Edward J. Snowden story has everything. A man driven by ego and idealism - can anyone ever distinguish the two? - leaves his job and his beautiful girlfriend behind. He must tell the world the Panopticon has arrived. His masters vow to punish him, and he heads for Moscow in a desperate search for refuge.

The idealist walks on tiptoe, the materialist on his heels.

Too often, young people who are just bursting with idealism either find themselves playing a game for which they have little heart or are hurling themselves into wasteful protests against the so-called Establishment.

When I first ran for public office, it was with the passion and idealism of a young man who believed that government could help make our lives better, that public service was a calling and that citizenship demanded responsibilities. There was a greater good.

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

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

Any idealism is a proper subject for art.

The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

With so much to be aware of, awareness bracelets have reverted to signifying nothing more than color itself. Idealism has devolved into fashion.

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

We remember his sturdy idealism and his devotion to public good.

I have never been an idealist - that implies you aren't going to achieve something.

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.

The '60s redefined narcissism as idealism.

Let hope inspire you, but let not idealism blind you. Proverb Don't look back, you can never look back.

One senses that all the Bolsheviks, even those who ended up as cold-blooded autocrats, had been on a journey from idealism to something else, and didn't notice - to mix periods - when the Rubicon was crossed.

Idealism is what precedes experience, cynicism is what follows.

Her vision of what the country is, and what she should be writing about, is totally her own. She's utterly in step with the current moment, ... She's in touch with contemporary culture and the things people in their 20s are interested in, but it's all informed with a level of attention and idealism about America as a place you would expect from somebody much older and tweedier.

I think it is important for readers to know that it is possible to bring intellectualism and idealism to the White House and still be political enough to advance an agenda.

Over the past decade, ... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.

PIH combines idealism and brilliance to a degree I've never witnessed before in the public charity arena,

Steve is a very driven man making a point ? that he's the best and the smartest and that he can change the world. This guy comes down to a mix of three things: pragmatism, idealism and sheer drive.

Look, I would say that anyone who does this work and doesn't have a strain of idealism is an adrenaline junkie or completely narcissistic. There is no other justification. You're risking your life, and if anything happens, it's our families who suffer tremendously.

We are missing something. Our youth today is empty. No longer do the children dream and believe they can change the world. Apathy has destroyed the beautiful idealism of our youth. The intricate illusions and fearless aspirations. The gleam in a child's eye. God help us. All hope is truly lost.

The purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge.

Don't look back, you can never look back

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

Our ideals are our better selves.

To all of the young people out there who are creating social change or even fomenting social movements: hold on to your idealism and your belief in your ability to change the world. Your lofty goals demand attention and deserve support.

The romantic idealism of my youth has been replaced with realism and hard work at what I love.

Teens are passionate, questioning, curious, have a bit of the idealism I still cling to, and they're making decisions for the first time that can alter the course of their lives - and sometimes, the course of the world.

Sometimes idealism and all that make believe makes the world a better place.

America is exceptional in combining standard great-power realism with extravagant idealism about the country's redemptive role in creating international order.

There's an idealism starting to bubble up again. Today's kids aren't the materialist, MBA, Bonfire-of-the-Vanities types that you saw in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They're also not the weary, cynical types who think they can't do anything.

Absolutely. Like a lot of music, there's a movement that occurs in the underground and it's a bunch of kids uniting under the idealism that music spawns. In the '80s there was this aggressive music because kids were pent up, and they needed to get it out. So the ultimate expression is to scream your guts out.

Students have a tremendous amount to give to this effort, and their idealism and energy is needed in the Gulf. These young people are recognizing the importance of being citizens, not simply spectators, and their growing engagement in hurricane relief bodes very well for our nation.

It's time for greatness -- not for greed. It's a time for idealism -- not ideology. It is a time not just for compassionate words, but compassionate action.

It went beyond idealism and that ridiculous term activism, which basically means talking about something but doing nothing. We made giving exciting.

He stands for something, he has that idealism and that something that you just don't see in 99.9 percent of today's politicians.

The ideal, after all, is true than the real: for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things.

A visionary company doesn't simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.

The idealist regards facts as provisional.

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

Idealism has devolved into madness.

The enemy of idealism is zealotry.

Idealism leads to realism if it is strictly thought out.

Idealism is the highest form of reason.

There is no realism without an element of idealism.

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

Quiet heroism or youthful idealism, or both? What do we know? That life without heroism and idealism is not worth living - or that either can be fatal?

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

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

The single most amazing phenomenon is the discrediting of idealism.

My belief is that no human being or society composed of human beings ever did or ever will come to much unless their conduct was governed and guided by the love of some ethical ideal.

I'd describe myself as a pragmatist tinged with idealism.

If a young person has any idealism at all, it's strongest about the time he finishes college.

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

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

Happiness too is inevitable.

We have to live and let live in order to create what we are.

Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism; Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant; that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

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.

Wishes are recollections coming from the future.

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

It is curious that Christianity, which is idealism, is sturdily defended by the brokers, and steadily attacked by the idealists.

The actual well seen is ideal.

Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.

Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.