Idealism Quotes
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Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
William Francis Buckley
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There are some who become spies for money, or out of vanity and megalomania, or out of ambition, or out of a desire for thrills. But the malady of our time is of those who become spies out of idealism.
Max Lerner
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I'd describe myself as a pragmatist tinged with idealism.
Vernon A. Walters
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Fairy tales and myths are forms of cultural storage for the natural history of life.
William Irwin Thompson
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All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Modern man, brought up on Kantian idealism, regards nature as being no more than an outcome of the laws of the mind. Losing all their independence as divine works, things gravitate henceforth round human thought, whence their laws are derived. What wonder, after that, is if criticism had resulted in the virtual disappearance of all metaphysics? As soon as the universe is reduced to the laws of mind, man, now become creator, has no longer any means of rising above himself. Legislator of a world to which his own mind has given birth, he is henceforth the prisoner of his own work, and he will never escape from it anymore. If my thought is the condition of being, never by thought shall I be able to transcend the limits of my being and my capacity for the infinite will never be satisfied.
Etienne Gilson
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Youth is a period of idealism. The Communists attract young people by appealing directly to that idealism. Too often, others have failed either to appeal to it or to use it and they are the losers as a consequence. We have no cause to complain if, having neglected the idealism of youth, we see others come along, take it, and harness it to their cause - and against our own.
Douglas Hyde
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The natural idealism of youth is an idealism, alas, for which we do not always provide as many outlets as we should.
Sargent Shriver
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You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It's very real. It's very strong.
Bono
U2
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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.
Marian Wright Edelman
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I want to remember what bullshit looks like when weapons of mass destruction are diagrammed out and whacko "intelligence" is delivered in an ominous way to strike fear into people and especially to pull on the idealism and zeal of the young.
Louise Erdrich
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I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism.
William Hague
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Nearly all the Escapists in the long past have managed their own budget and their social relations so unsuccessfully that I wouldn't want them for my landlords, or my bankers, or my neighbors. They were valuable, like powerful stimulants, only when they were left out of the social and industrial routine.
Willa Cather
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Ego trips by coteries of self-exalting people are treated in the media as idealism, rather than the petty tyranny it is.
Thomas Sowell
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Idealism does not represent a superfluous expression of emotion, but in truth it has been, is, and will be, the premise for what we designate as human culture...Without his idealistic attitude all, even the most dazzling faculties of the intellect, would remain mere intellect just like outward appearance without inner value, and never creative force....The purest idealism is unconsciously equivalent to the deepest knowledge.
Adolf Hitler
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If a young person has any idealism at all, it's strongest about the time he finishes college.
Sargent Shriver
