Idealism Quotes - Page 5

• I always used to suffer a great deal if I let myself get too close to reality since the definitive world of the everyday with itshard edges and harsh light did not have enough resonance to echo the demands I made upon experience. It was as if I never experienced experience as experience. Living never lived up to the expectations I had of it--the Bovary syndrome.

  Angela Carter

  Reality, Echoes, Light

  Angela Carter (2016). “Fireworks”, p.54, Random House

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• I write with one hand, but I fight with both.

  Victor Hugo

  Writing, Fighting, Hands

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• This preparatory sort of idealism is the one that, as I just suggested, Berkeley made prominent, and, after a fashion familiar. I must state it in my own way, although one in vain seeks to attain novelty in illustrating so frequently described a view.

  Josiah Royce

  Fashion, Views, Swag

  Josiah Royce (1900). “The Spirit of Modern Philosophy: An Essay in the Form of Lectures”, p.351, Courier Corporation

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• The way in which a certain kind of political idealism has been discredited and scorned makes the danger not that intellectuals keep on making fools of themselves, formulating political opinions when they might not be as informed as they might be, but that they retreat and leave politics to the professionals.

  Susan Sontag

  Political Opinions, Might, Way

  Source: ctheory.net

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• America is at war with itself because it's basically declared war not only on any sense of democratic idealism, but it's declared war on all the institutions that make democracy possible. And we see it with the war on public schools. We see it with the war on education. We see it with the war on the healthcare system.

  Henry Giroux

  War, School, Democracy

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Idealism is a fuel for living, and there is an absolute efficiency about how it motivates and propels us.

  Rick Alverson

  Efficiency

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

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• Underneath the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Journey, Perfection, Heaven

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.484, Library of America

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• I contracted a disease which I have never shaken off. The disease was idealism. Because of it, I did the thing in life I wanted to do - Writing.

  Max Ehrmann

  Writing, Things In Life, Disease

  Max Ehrmann (2017). “The Desiderata of Happiness”, p.4, Souvenir Press Ltd

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• The idealist regards facts as provisional.

  Mason Cooley

  Facts, Idealist, Regard

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

  Assata Shakur

  Sake, Given, Without Hope

  Assata Shakur (2016). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.9, Zed Books Ltd.

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• 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.

  Christopher Dawson

  Christian, Lying, Elements

  Christopher Dawson, Gerald J. Russello (1998). “Christianity and European Culture (Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson)”, p.118, CUA Press

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• Idealism and realism meet in the actual.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Idealism And Realism, Realism

  Mary Parker Follett, Pauline Graham (1996). “Mary Parker Follett--prophet of management: a celebration of writings from the 1920s”, Harvard Business Press

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

  Mason Cooley

  Pursuit, Absolutes

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• What the nostalgic past and the imaginary future seem to share in common is a form of idealism, perhaps a dream of wholeness. Our future is just as goopy with sentiment as our past. To me, they're the same, both very tempting, and I don't believe in either, although the idealism is probably important.

  Charles D'Ambrosio

  Dream, Believe, Past

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• We have a system which, though far from perfect, is strong with idealism. It gives elbow room for men of all races and all beliefs. It is vital and dynamic. And it works. We have the means of shaping the world in our pattern. If we do, freedom will be assured for all men. The decision is in the hands of this generation. It is a challenge to our political competence. For Western civilization it is the greatest challenge of all time.

  William O. Douglas

  Strong, Mean, Men

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• I think the American Dream used to be achieving one's goals in your field of choice-and from that all other things would follow. Now, I think the dream has morphed into the pursuit of money: Accumulate enough of it, and the rest will follow. We've become more materialistic. For balance, I think we need to get back to idealism and patriotism, but also be realistic with our monetary goals.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Dream, Thinking, Goal

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• I was influenced by the political environment of our country that has just gained freedom from British colonialism. And the seminal figures in that environment were Mahatma Gandhi, who had been assassinated shortly after I was born, but nevertheless dominated the collective psyche of the country. And of course there were other statesmen who were very much part of the culture we knew as well as looked upon by society as leaders, and mentors, and people that inspires us to have a vision for idealism.

  Deepak Chopra

  Country, People, Leader

  Source: bigthink.com

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• Ultimately, we measure ourselves against our own ideas of idealism and perfection, and we don't always come very close to them.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Ideas, Perfection

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• Gore Vidal said "Nixon is us, we are Nixon." I think we have to acknowledge that combination of idealism and sleaze; we want to be better than we are, and we sometimes don't face up to the real questions.

  Oliver Stone

  Real, Thinking, Want

  Source: www.rogerebert.com

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• Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendentalist cult. In that address of the graduating class at Divinity College in 1838 which made Emerson famous, the frank expression of this worship of mere abstract laws was what made the scandal of the performance.

  William James

  Letting Go, Spiritual, College

  "The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature". Book by William James, 1902.

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• We need not seek our own best selves, and in the meantime we inoculate ourselves against the viruses of age and idealism, which, as the advertising agencies well know, depress sales and sour the feasts of consumption.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Depressing, Agency, Self

  "Waiting For The Barbarians" by Lewis H. Lapham, (p. 197), 1997.

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• A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.

  Lin Yutang

  Wild Geese, Might, Too Much

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

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• The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men's theories of women, as they alwayshave done. When a woman is thoroughly herself, she is being what her type of man wants her to be. When a woman is hysterical it's because she doesn't quite know what to be, which pattern to follow, which man's picture of woman to live up to.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Real, Women, Trying

  D.H. Lawrence (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)”, p.9366, Delphi Classics

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• Chivalry - ...a romantic idealism closely related to Christianity, which makes honor the guiding principle of conduct. Connected with this is the ancient concept of the gentleman.

  Richard M. Weaver

  War, Guiding Principles, Gentleman

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• Every materialist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Idealist

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.89, Penguin

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