Best 226 quotes in «idealism quotes» category

I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism.

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

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

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.

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

It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.

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

My idealism is clearly one reason I'm an artist. I see art as one of mankind's more sublime acts, as a vital counterbalance to our base impulses .

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

Mix idealism with realism and add hard work. This will often bring much more than you could ever hope for.

It is very important that you express your idealism actively, to what ever extent you can, for this increases your sense of worth and power.

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

It's important to start off with ideals, even if they become modified at some later stage.

I was saying to Paul Schrader that he missed the idealism and the passion of that era in Hollywood, but also in American life, that '60s sense of optimism and hope.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

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 enemy of idealism is zealotry.

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

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

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

The '60s redefined narcissism as idealism.

The idealist regards facts as provisional.

The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence.

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

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

When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values--an identification which alone makesit possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.

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

The purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge.

The single most amazing phenomenon is the discrediting of idealism.

The struggle against subjectivism was the attempt to avoid the charge of what was then called "idealism" or "nihilism", i.e., that we know nothing more than our own representations.

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

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

When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.

There is no force so democratic as the force of an ideal.

There is no realism without an element of idealism.

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

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

Always carry what is beautiful in your heart.

Wishes are recollections coming from the future.

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.

¿Acaso crees que las personas mueren asesinadas por sus actos? No, mueren por sus ideales, porque saben que es el único modo de extinguir el pensamiento único, en general… La historia de nuestra civilización lo ha demostrado con los años.

...After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are the moving impulses of our life. But it is only those who do not understand our people, who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism.

A man is always devoted to something more tangible than a woman - the idea of her.

A genius is a grown-up that did not grow up.

And it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were - and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings anymore.

Anyone can be an idealist. Anyone can be a cynic. The hard part lies somewhere in the middle—that is, being human.

Anton Chekhov tells the truth neither out of love or respect for the truth, nor yet because, in the Kantian manner, a high duty bids him never to tell a lie, even to escape death. Neither has he the impulse which so often pushes young and fiery souls into rashness: that desire to stand erect, to keep the head high. On the contrary, Chekhov always walks with a stoop, his head bent down, never fixing his eyes on the heavens, since he will read no signs there. If he tells the truth, it is because the most reeking lie no longer intoxicates him, even though he swallow it not in the modest doses that idealism offers, but in immoderate quantities, thousand-gallon-barrel gulps.

A significant part of the history of science has been the dethroning of human beings from being the centre of existence. Copernicus and Kepler showed the Earth was not the centre of the universe with everything orbiting the Earth. Darwin showed that the human being is just another animal, which has evolved like all other animals and shares ancestors with all other living species. It is time to dethrone the human view of the world and recognize that it is just another view of the world, no more real or true than the view of any other species.

Are we truly committed to the notion that ideals and values vary and alter in accordance with changing conditions? Should we not question such a relativistic dogma? Is not the degree of our sensitivity to the validity of the ultimate ideals and values that fluctuates rather than the ultimate ideals and values?

Being Jewish did not compromise the humanitarian and universalist ideals of my close relatives who, having experienced persecution close hand, were more concerned with bringing about peace, justice and equality in the world than in trying to cut out a niche where they could continue an insular — Jewish — fantasy.