Idealist Quotes

Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude, and you are now turned thirty. ~ Margaret Atwood

Jesus, in fact, was typical of a certain kind of fanatical young idealist: at one moment holding forth, with tears in his eyes, about the need for universal love; at the next, furiously denouncing the morons, crooks and bigots who did not see eye to eye with him. It is very natural and very human behaviour. But it is not superhuman. ~ Margaret E. Knight

He had always had a passion for life and the idealism he had come across seemed to him for the most part a cowardly shrinking from it. The idealist withdrew himself because he could not suffer the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain and since his fellows would not take him at his own estimate, consoled himself with despising his fellows. For Phillip, this type was Hayward, fair, languid, too fat now and rather bald, still cherishing the remains of his good looks and still delicately proposing to do exquisite things in the uncertain future; and at the back of this were whiskey and vulgar amours of the street. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I'm not an idealist. I know we're not going to be living in a world that's peace and love all the time. But we can live in a world where we kill each other a lot less. ~ Michael Franti

I happen to think we've set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Cynic: an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision ~ Rick Bayan

I'm still a bit of a romantic and an idealist and hopelessly naive. ~ Brit Marling

Any discussion between idealist and realist would never end. ~ Toba Beta

Both agree in repudiating "marriage for love"; but the idealist repudiates it in the name of love, the critic in the name of marriage. Love, for the idealist Ibsen, is a passion which loses its virtue when it reaches its goal, which inspires only while it aspires, and flags bewildered when it attains. Marriage, for the critic Ibsen, is an institution beset with pitfalls into which those are surest to step who enter it blinded with love. ~ Henrik Ibsen

She is Living and I'm Dead, but I'd like to believe we're both human. Call me an idealist. ~ Isaac Marion

Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world. ~ Emma Goldman

The function of the well-intentioned individual, acting in isolation, is to formulate or disseminate theoretical truths. The function of the well-intentioned individuals in association is to live in accordance with those truths, to demonstrate what happens when theory is translated into practice, to create small-scale working models of the better form of society to which the speculative idealist looks forward. ~ Aldous Huxley

The idealist regards facts as provisional. ~ Mason Cooley

It is interesting that we call something good a "dream," but being called a "dreamer" is somewhat of a putdown.
Without dreamers, no dream would ever be given reality, and we would live in a very small and shallow world.
If you are a secret dreamer, it's your time to announce yourself. ~ Vera Nazarian

In current times when everyone tells us to work smart, they are right. Be idealist, bring grand big ideas, innovate and launch thrilling initiatives but then, work hard. Work real hard because all that has ever been achieved in this world is by true dedication, persistence and consistent hard work". ~ Khalida Brohi

Kissinger traces the balances made in foreign policy, including that of realism and idealism, from the times of Cardinal Richelieu through chapters on Theodore Roosevelt the realist and Woodrow Wilson the idealist. Kissinger, a European refugee who has read Metternich more avidly than Jefferson, is unabashedly in the realist camp. "No other nation," he wrote in Diplomacy, "has ever rested its claim to international leadership on its altruism." Other Americans might proclaim this as a point of pride; when Kissinger says it, his attitude seems that of an anthropologist examining a rather unsettling tribal ritual. The practice of basing policy on ideals rather than interests, he pointed out, can make a nation seem dangerously unpredictable. ~ Walter Isaacson

If I wasn't idealistic, there wouldn't be anything worth fighting for. ~ Mik Everett

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup. ~ H.L. Mencken

I've read a couple of reviews that say I'm getting harder in my old age but I don't think that's true at all. I think that you can't help but become a little cynical about life and love but I'm still a romantic, I'm still an idealist. ~ Madonna Ciccone

Law is an imperfect profession in which success can rarely be achieved without some sacrifice of principle. Thus all practicing lawyers
and most others in the profession
will necessarily be imperfect, especially in the eyes of young idealists. There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it. ~ Alan Dershowitz

I'm not an idealist anymore, I'm a bitter realist. ~ Soe Hok Gie

And try to remember how to be an idealist. ~ Carrie Vaughn

Idealism is one of the greatest forces in the world. It makes seeming impossibilities possible and succeeds where prudence fails. But unless the idealist is brave and has the courage to face the truth, his idealism creates nothing. ~ Grenville Kleiser

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

I may be a businessman in that I set up and run companies for profit, but when I try to plan ahead and dream up new products and new companies, I'm an idealist. ~ Richard Branson

It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame. ~ Marie-Louise Von Franz

The opposite of an idealist is too often a man without love. ~ Albert Camus

The young man is also an idealist. He has yet to find out that what's in the public interest is not what the public is interested in. ~ Terry Pratchett

I'm an idealist without illusions.
[Ca. 1953, attributed to John F. Kennedy by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in 'A Thousand Days' ~ John F. Kennedy

The genius of Shakespeare lay in his power to so use the real and individual facts of life as to raise in the minds of his readers a broader and nobler conception of human life than they had conceived before. This is creative genius; this is the idealist dealing faithfully with realistic material; this is, as we should say in our day, the work of the artist as distinguished from the work of the photographer. It may be an admirable but it is not the highest work of the sculptor, the painter, or the writer, that does not reveal to the mind - that comes into relation with it something before out of his experience and beyond the facts either brought before him or with which he is acquainted. ~ William Shakespeare

Metaphysics, said the late nineteenth-century idealist philosopher Bradley, is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct; but metaphysics has changed in the meantime, and is now the finding of bad reasons for what we cannot possibly believe however hard we try. All I can say is that the disbelief in the reality of consciousness or personal identity has never prevented anyone from copyrighting his book in which that unreality is argued; and I very much doubt that any author of such a book has ever been completely indifferent as to the bank account into which its royalties were paid. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

The spiritualist or the idealist believes in a spiritual essence of force; spiritual, that is to say phantomatic, inexplicable. The man of materialist science is an unbeliever. Nowhere does a scientific justification exist either for belief or unbelief. Materialism has the advantage that it is not seeking the transcendental, the essence, the cause, the force behind phenomena nor that beyond matter. But when he misconstrues the distinction between force and matter, when he denies the existence of the whole problem, he merely slips around behind idealism. The materialist asserts the real indivisibility of matter and force and to explain their seperation, gives value solely to "an exterior reason, born of the need for systemisation of our consciousness. ~ Joseph Dietzgen

Idealism is an ideal which is based on the idea of someone of the perfect world or the perfect life. An idealist fails to understand the limitation of his idea and believes that the real world can be converted into the world of his idea. ~ Awdhesh Singh

The Minimalists are idealist. They want to minimize themselves in favor of the ideal ... But I just can't. You see, my paintings are not cool. ~ Agnes Martin

Jesus is not an impractical idealist; he is the practical realist. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

You are the most dangerous kind of female the world can ever know. You carry the seeds for your own destruction and the destruction of everyone who loves you. And a great many will love you for your beautiful face for your seductive body; but you will fail them all because you will believe they all fail you first. You are an idealist of the worst kind - the romantic idealist. Born to destroy and self destruct. ~ V.C. Andrews

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

The concept of reconciliation is not irretrievable, but I am convinced that before we theologians can interpret the depths of the divine action of reconciliation we must first articulate the profound deformities of Christian intimacy and identity in modernity. Until we do, all theological discussions of reconciliation will be exactly what they tend to be: (a) ideological tools for facilitating negotiations of power; or (b) socially exhausted idealist claims masquerading as serious theological accounts. In truth, it is not at all clear that most Christians are ready to imagine reconciliation. ~ Willie James Jennings

Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I wonder which YOU are. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles! ~ Bill Watterson

I'm an idealist
who has outgrown
my idealism
I have nothing to do
the rest of my life
but do it
and the rest of my life
to do it ~ Jack Kerouac

There aren't many idealists in politics. ~ Evelyn Anthony

The idealist walks on tiptoe, the materialist on his heels. ~ Malcolm De Chazal

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

If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you don't have a head. ~ Randolph Bourne

Making the decision to leave Valve strikes me as right up there with turning down the throne to Narnia, but then call me an idealist, and I guess I probably wouldn't want to spend my whole life making new hats for Team Fortress 2 either. ~ Yahtzee Croshaw

Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. The measure of all things ... ~ Robert M. Pirsig

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. ~ Eric Hoffer

I'm an idealist without illusions. ~ John F. Kennedy

I am an idealist, which can be tiring. ~ Hussein Chalayan

As long as one makes some kind of conscious state, whether a "passive sensation" or an "apprehended", come before reality, one will remain more or less in debt to the idealist method. The realist method pursues an exactly opposite course. Every given reality implies the thought which apprehends it. Therefore being is the condition of knowing; knowing is not the condition of being. When this has been established, another step in the direction of metaphysics can be taken. ~ Etienne Gilson

A pragmatic person sees the dark and the light side of life, while an
idealist sees a life filled with colors. ~ Eraldo Banovac

In the construction of a country, it is not the practical workers but the idealists and planners that are difficult to find. ~ Sun Yat-sen

The idealist's program of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable. ~ Charles Horton Cooley

THE GAMBLER,THE NUN,& THE RADIO
I am a poor idealist. I am a victim of illusions. He laughed. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I'm still an idealist. My manager is always trying to talk me out of it, but that's just the way I am. ~ Ariel Rechtshaid

Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist. ~ Jon F. Merz

It is always easy to divide the world into idealists and power-oriented people. The idealists are presumed to be the noble people, and the power-oriented people are the ones that cause all the world's trouble. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

Despite the sisters' pretend rivalry and occasional squabbles, they were each other's staunchest ally and closest friend. Few people in Lillian's life had ever loved her except Daisy, who adored the ugliest stray dogs, the most annoying children, and things that needed to be repaired or thrown out altogether.
And yet for all their closeness, they were quite different. Daisy was an idealist, a dreamer, a mercurial creature who alternated between childlike whimsy and shrewd intelligence. Lillian knew herself to be a sharp-tongued girl with a fortress of defenses between herself and the rest of the world- a girl with well-maintained cynicism and a biting sense of humor. ~ Lisa Kleypas

It's nice to live in that world inside your head that abides by your little idealist wishes, ya know, where everyone is straight up about their intentions and never uses people or lies about anything. But seriously, that ain't how this shit works, and the quicker you get that and stop throwing these rushed judgments onto people who are living a life that you have no fucking clue about what it feels to live, then you'll actually be ready for the shit that's gonna get tossed your way. Once you get that people are always gonna let you down and hurt you in some capacity, that's when you actually start to cultivate something real with them. ~ Jason Myers

Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist. ~ George Carlin

When it comes down to it, Matthew was just another disillusioned idealist, an over-reactive Hamlet type--couldn't take it that the world was real. ~ Graham Swift

When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I'm a little bit more of a realist now. I think there's a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it's more about choosing your battles. ~ Conor Oberst

I am confident - and you may call me an idealist and dreamer - I am confident that sooner or later we shall fit these Personal Hours as well into the general formula. Some day these 86,400 seconds will also be on the Table of Hours! I have read and heard many incredible things about the times when people still lived in a free - meaning unorganized and savage - condition. And what seems most incredible to me, is that the state authority of that time - no matter how rudimentary it was - could have allowed people to live without something similar to our Table. Without obligatory walks, without exact regulation of mealtimes, getting up and going to bed whenever they felt like it ... Some ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic. ~ Studs Terkel

Stevenson had noble ideas
as did the young Franklin for that matter. But Stevenson felt that the way to implement them was to present himself as a thoughtful idealist and wait for the world to flock to him. He considered it below him, or wrong, to scramble out among the people and ask them what they wanted. Roosevelt grappled voters to him. Stevenson shied off from them. Some thought him too pure to desire power, though he showed ambition when it mattered. ~ Garry Wills

You are an idealist," Bonteri said. "That's not a bad thing."
"I know," Padmé said. "I have worked very hard at it. ~ E.K. Johnston

Up until then it had only been himself. Up to then it had been a private wrestle between him and himself. Nobody else much entered into it. After the people came into it he was, of course, a different man. Everything had changed then and he was no longer the virgin, with the virgin's right to insist upon platonic love. Life, in time, takes every maidenhead, even if it has to dry it up; it does not matter how the owner wants to keep it. Up to then he had been the young idealist. But he could not stay there. Not after the other people entered into it. ~ James Jones

The idealist withdrew himself, because he could not suffer the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain, and since his fellows would not take him at his own estimate, consoled himself with despising his fellows. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I'm an idealist. ~ Bobby Cannavale

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

To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. ~ Thomas Merton

The Big Bang has made Idealists out of almost anybody who thinks. First there was absolutely nothing, then Bang! Something. This is beyond weird. Out of sheerest Emptiness, manifestation arises. ~ Ken Wilber

Man is by nature a pragmatic materialist, a mechanic, a lover of gadgets and gadgetry; and these are the qualities that characterize the "establishment" which regulates modern society: pragmatism, materialism, mechanization, and gadgetry. Woman, on the other hand, is a practical idealist, a humanitarian with a strong sense of noblesse oblige, an altruist rather than a capitalist. ~ Elizabeth Gould Davis

A cynic is a frustrated idealist. ~ Al Ruksenas

I am a misanthrope, but exceedingly benevolent; I am very cranky, and am a super-idealist ... I can digest philosophy better than food. ~ Alfred Nobel

Hope is the heaviest weight a man can carry. It is the bane of the idealist. ~ Raimundo Arruda Sobrinho

Nature knows nothing about right and wrong, good and evil, pleasure and pain; she simply acts. She creates a beautiful woman, and places a cancer on her cheek. She may create an idealist, and kill him with a germ. She creates a fine mind, and then burdens it with a deformed body. And she will create a fine body, apparently for no use whatever. She may destroy the most wonderful life when its work has just commenced. She may scatter tubercular germs broadcast throughout the world. She seemingly works with no method, plan or purpose. She knows no mercy nor goodness. Nothing is so cruel and abandoned as Nature. To call her tender or charitable is a travesty upon words and a stultification of intellect. No one can suggest these obvious facts without being told that he is not competent to judge Nature and the God behind Nature. If we must not judge God as evil, then we cannot judge God as good. In all the other affairs of life, man never hesitates to classify and judge, but when it comes to passing on life, and the responsibility of life, he is told that it must be good, although the opinion beggars reason and intelligence and is a denial of both. Emotionally, I shall no doubt act as others do to the last moment of my existence. With my last breath I shall probably try to draw another, but, intellectually, I am satisfied that life is a serious burden, which no thinking, humane person would wantonly inflict on some one else. ~ Clarence Darrow

All of Robert Caro's biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro's fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century. ~ Jeffrey Pfeffer

The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace. ~ Chinua Achebe

In combating cynicism, it helps to know its source. Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustated idealist – someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.

Bill O'Brien points out that 'burnout' comes from causes other than simply working too hard: "There are teachers, social workers and clergy who work incredibly hard until they are 80 years old and never suffer 'burnout' - because they have an accurate view of human nature. They don't over-romanticize people, so they don't feel the great pshychological stress when people let them down ~ Peter M. Senge

I love you so much, sweetheart. So, so much. And it's in part because of things like that. You're an idealist and a romantic, and you have a beautiful soul. And I wish the world was ready to be the way you see it. I wish that the rest of the people on earth with us were capable of living up to your expectations. But they aren't. The world is ugly, and no one wants to give anyone the benefit of the doubt about anything. When we lose our work and our reputations, when we lose our friends and, eventually, what money we have, we will be destitute. I've lived that life before. And I cannot let it happen to you. I will do whatever I can to prevent you from living that way. Do you hear me? I love you too much to let you live only for me. ~ Taylor Jenkins Reid

In fact, science is neither materialist nor idealist; it is simply science. It's impartial and can't be answerable for the direction of its conclusions. ~ Valerian Pidmohylny

I used to think if it wasn't possible to be a family man and a totally dedicated artist, I'd rather be the former. I'm an idealist and a romantic. ~ Charlton Heston

I guess I just grew up thinking that when we become adults, we get to do what we love. For work, for fun, forever. I don't know where I got that from. Seems silly now. ~ Crystal Woods

an idealist is a hypocrite, because he is always trying to become what he is not, instead of being and understanding what he is. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Don't make me into this airy-fairy, moralist, idealist because I'm not. ~ Madeleine Albright

Any idealist who tries to join the Peace Corps must realize he is not going to change the world overnight. ~ Sargent Shriver

A youth is susceptible to the influence of idealist notions. As a person ages, they notice a gap between their expectations and reality and they grow more pessimistic about the world and their ability to live up to the lofty notions that inspired a younger self. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Contrasting British servicemen and women with the appeasers, it is hard not to laugh. Are these two sides even the same species, let alone the same nationality? On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters. Excuse me, who are the idealists here? ~ Julie Burchill

Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions. ~ A.J.P. Taylor

Ideas first and last: yet it is not till these are formulated and utilized that the devotees of the common sense discern their value and advantages. The idealist is the capitalist on whose resources multitudes are maintained life long. Ideas in the head set hands about their several tasks, thus carrying forward all human endeavors to their issues. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

There's no question I am an idealist, which is another way of saying 'I am an American.' ~ Ronald Reagan

All human beings are vines. But especially the idealist. He is a vine, and he needs to clutch and climb. And he despises the man who is a mere potato, or turnip, or lump of wood. ~ D.H. Lawrence

I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system - that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty. ~ Harper Lee

It is a mistake," he said, " to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort. We know that well enough from our experience in the environmental crisis of the twentieth century. Once it was well known that cigarettes increased the incidence of lung cancer, the obvious remedy was to stop smoking, but the desired remedy was a cigarette that did not cause cancer. When it became clear that the internal-combustion engine was polluting the atmosphere dangerously, the obvious remedy was to abandon such engines, and the desired remedy was to develop non-polluting engines. ~ Isaac Asimov

Teachers are by nature idealists, and they believe anything can be learned. ~ Susan Wiggs

At Chicago I read again 'Philip Van Artevelde,' and certain passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the deep sound of the lake, as heard in the night. I used to read a short time at night, and then open the blind to look out. The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath, pure light, and the deep voice, harmonized well with the thought of the Flemish hero. When will this country have such a man ? It is what she needs - no thin Idealist, no coarse Realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens while his feet step firmly on the ground and his hands are strong and dextrous in the use of human instruments. A man, religious, virtuous and - sagacious; a man of universal sympathies, but self-possessed; a man who knows the region of emotion, though he is not its slave; a man to whom this world is no mere spectacle or fleeting shadow, but a great, solemn game, to be played with good heed, for its stakes are of eternal value, yet who, if his own play be true, heeds not what he loses by the falsehood of others. A man who lives from the past, yet knows that its honey can but moderately avail him; whose comprehensive eye scans the present, neither infatuated by its golden lures nor chilled by its many ventures; who possesses prescience, as the wise man must, but not so far as to be driven mad to-day by the gift which discerns to-morrow. When there is such a man for America, the thought which urges her on will be expressed. ~ Margaret Fuller

He was a militant idealist who crusaded against racial bigotry by growing faint in its presence. ~ Joseph Heller

As a citizen of the world, it's my instinct to keep the fallen and the suffering in my thoughts. The human brain fascinates me; its limitless bounds of empathy. You see, in my mind there is logic to it: do no harm, prevent harm, help, support, care for the harmed, face the harmer. My stupid idealist conscience considers sympathy, not pity, at its worst, the most basic and the least negotiable civil duty. Of course as a citizen of the world, I should strive to do more. That said, I am only a man and so I often do the least. ~ Asaad Almohammad