Idealism Quotes

My parents are wonderful people and they instilled in me an idealism for which I'm grateful.

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

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

Idealism that makes no distinction between areas where our national interest lies and those from which it is remote does no good for America. The weariness of the post-Versailles, post-Korea, post-Vietnam eras is never far from the national mood.

As I have pointed out, it is the Christian tradition that is the most fundamental element in Western culture. It lies at the base not only of Western religion, but also of Western morals and Western social idealism.

Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known.

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.

Whatever happened to a sense of idealism and embracing an idea that will help people and, in this case, children?

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

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.

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.

Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.

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.

Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism.

Americans have been remarkably devoted to the capacity for belief, to idealism. That's why we get into trouble all the time. We're always viewed as naive.

Only through the conscious action of the working masses in city and country can it be brought to life, only through the people's highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it be brought safely through all storms and find its way to port.

The fact is, beneath the hype, Iraqis will soon appreciate American help and idealism far more than French perfidy. It is never wrong to be on the side of freedom - never.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

For we, too, have our ideals, even if we differ from those who have tried to establish a monopoly of idealism.

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.

It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one.

The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.

Any idealism is a proper subject for art.

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.

I've always wanted to play Don Quixote in some way. It's a great role. I think the idealism of the man shows that hope that we have in the human breast to achieve something.

Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

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