Idealistic Quotes

• 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.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Doe, Penalties, Periods

  Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.272, David R. Godine Publisher

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• I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There weren't many degrees offered in computer science, so people in computers were brilliant people from mathematics, physics, music, zoology, whatever. They loved it, and no one was really in it for the money.

  Steve Jobs

  People, Degrees, Lucky

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• We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

  George F. Kennan

  Rights, Should, Standards

  "PPS No. 23". Memo by George Kennan, en.wikisource.org. February 28, 1948.

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• I have your word?” “You trust my word?” “You’re an idealistic fool. Of course.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Fool, Courses

  Karen Marie Moning (2016). “The Fever Series 7-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever, Iced, Burned”, p.581, Dell

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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

  Attitude, Expression, Creative

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• some may think that to affirm dialogue—the encounter of women and men in the world in order to transform the world—is naively and subjectively idealistic. there is nothing, however, more real or concrete than people in the world and with the world, than humans with other humans.

  Paulo Freire

  Real, Men, Thinking

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.129, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• But it does no good--solves nothing--to distance myself from the front lines of human need by using the mail as a safe shelter. I believe that serving the best ends of humanity means getting out in the middle of it just as it is, not staying home writing checks and thinking hopeful thoughts. The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are. And you're damned right that's idealistic. No apology. When idealism goes into the trash as junk mail, we're finished.

  Robert Fulghum

  Distance, Believe, Mean

  Robert Fulghum (2010). “Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door”, p.173, Ivy Books

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• She is a woman of honour and smartness whose wild leaves out luck, always taking risks, and there is something in her brow now, that only she can recognize in a mirror. Ideal and idealistic in that shiny dark hair! People fall in love with her. She is a woman I don’t know well enough to hold in my wing, if writers have wings, to harbour for the rest of my life.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Falling In Love, Dark, Wings

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Mar 08, 2015

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• I used to work for an NGO called Transitions Online, and I was their Director of New Media. I was a very idealistic fellow who thought that he could use blogs, social networks and new media to help promote democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Rights, Media, Expression

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• Vietnam was really an idealistic thing to stop the spread of communism, which, incidentally, it did. It was a pretty costly way to do it, but it achieved its goal.

  Tom Wolfe

  Goal, Vietnam, Way

  "Dances with Wolfe" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. January 20, 2008.

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• America is a very religious nation. Not a mono-religious nation because there are many different strands of belief, but there's something about this nation that inspires people, or perhaps draws people, who are strongly idealistic.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Religious, America, People

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• This is life...Not a peace treaty, not an idealistic dream, but a grim dance of death and survival. The strong live on while the weak--the ones too small or too foolish to fight back--die in agony and blood.

  Dan Wells

  Dream, Strong, Fighting

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• I think there are a lot of things in life that are not fair. But life, I believe, isn't always perfect and idealistic.

  Nadya Suleman

  Believe, Thinking, Things In Life

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• The House Of Commons has never been a tea-party. It consists of strong-minded, often very idealistic people, who are trying to accomplish something for our country. We are inheritors of an adversarial system and that, in itself, fosters conflict.

  John Allen Fraser

  Country, Strong, Party

  John Allen Fraser (1993). “The House of Commons at Work”, Montréal : Éditions de la Chenelière

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• I mean, is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me I'd rather [my daughters] were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny - a thousand things, before 'thin'. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.

  J. K. Rowling

  Girl, Daughter, Mean

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• Money is the medium of exchange, and it's how you make things happen. To say you hate it is some farfetched, idealistic crap.

  Bobby Seale

  Hate, Make Things Happen, Mediums

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• All politicians, even the most idealistic ones, are looking for money, sucking up to rich people.

  Paul Theroux

  People, Rich, Politician

  Source: www.usatoday.com

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• Without forgiveness, there is no future. Forgiveness is not nebulous, impractical and idealistic. It's thoroughly realistic. It's real political in the long run.

  Desmond Tutu

  Running, Real, Long

  Source: www.drfranklipman.com

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• This may sound a little bit idealistic, but when I go to my blog, my Facebook page, my Twitter account, I talk to different people from all over the world, and you see how it's easy to establish a dialogue.

  Paulo Coelho

  People, Sound, Different

  "Interview with Paulo Coelho, UN Messenger of Peace". UN News Centre Interview, www.un.org. December 22, 2010.

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• The naive which is simultaneously beautiful, poetic, and idealistic, must be both intention and instinct. The essence of intention, in this sense, is freedom. Consciousness is far from intention. There is a certain enamoured contemplation of one's own naturalness or silliness which itself is unspeakably silly. Intention does not necessarily require a profound calculation or plan.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Beautiful, Silly, Essence

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• The prestige of the Nobel Prize is due to many causes, but in particular to its twofold idealistic and international character: idealistic in that it has been designed for works of lofty inspiration; international in that it is awarded after the production of different countries has been minutely studied and the intellectual balance sheet of the whole world has been drawn up. Free from all other considerations and ignoring any but intellectual values, the judges have deliberately taken their place in what the philosophers have called a community of the mind.

  Henri Bergson

  Country, Taken, Inspiration

  Henri Bergson's acceptance speech (in the form of a letter) for the Nobel Prize in literature at the Nobel Banquet at Grand Hotel in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1928.

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• I'm idealistic so my life outlook is to never give up. Even if something seems absolutely impossible, I will run as hard as I can go.

  Choi Minho

  Running, Giving Up, Impossible

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• The policy of dollar diplomacy is one that appeals alike to idealistic humanitarian sentiments, to dictates of sound policy, and strategy, and to legitimate commercial aims.

  William Howard Taft

  Sound, Dollars, Strategy

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• An excessive preponderance of an idealistic mood is harmful to society: it creates daydreaming, political Don Quixotism, hope for heavenly intervention. This is an undeniable truth--but it is also true that every extreme is harmful.

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Political, Daydreaming, Mood

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• To undertake the direction of the economic life of people with widely divergent ideals and values is to assume responsibilities which commit one to the use of force; it is to assume a position where the best intentions cannot prevent one from being forced to act in a way which to some of those affected must appear highly immoral. This is true even if we assume the dominant power to be as idealistic and unselfish as we can possibly conceive. But how small is the likelihood that it will be unselfish, and how great are the temptations!

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Responsibility, People, Temptation

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 15 : The Prospects of International Order, 1940 - 1943.

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