Quotes about Idealism

Will part of this nation rejoice at seeing the rest oppressed, and reward a leader who has cunningly manipulated its fears and prejudices? Or will a majority of voters insist on a leader . . . who will appeal to their birthright of idealism and their love of justice, instead of to their heritage of racism and special privilege?

Love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else.

She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance.

the argument for the perfectibility of humankind rests on a logical fallacy. Thus: man is by definition imperfect, say those who would perfect him. But those who would perfect him are themselves, by their own definition, imperfect.

Stupid, stupid, stupid: I'd believed all that claptrap about life, liberty, democracy, and the rights of the individual I'd soaked up at law school. These were eternal verities and we would always defend them. I'd depended on that, as if on a magic charm.

Sooner or later, many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.

Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one

If the poet's description be criticized as not true to fact, one may urge perhaps that the object ought to be as described—an answer like that of Sophocles, who said that he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were.

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. John Adams, U.S. President

The line between courageous faith and foolish idealism is, almost by definition, one angstrom wide.