Idealism Quotes - Page 13

• Life is called Samsara - it is the result of the conflicting forces acting upon us. Materialism says, "The voice of freedom is a delusion." Idealism says, "The voice that tells of bondage is but a dream." Vedanta says, "We are free and not free at the same time." That means that we are never free on the earthly plane, but ever free on the spiritual side. The Self is beyond both freedom and bondage. We are Brahman, we are immortal knowledge beyond the senses, we are Bliss Absolute.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Dream, Spiritual, Mean

  Swami Vivekananda (1955). “Complete Works”

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• 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.

  Dominic Chianese

  Men, Thinking, Play

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• Any idealism is a proper subject for art.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Art, Subjects

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.35, tredition

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• The artist who really loves people loves them so well the way they are he sees no need to disguise their characteristics-he loves them whole, without retouching. Yet the word used for this unqualifying affection is 'cynicism'.

  Dawn Powell

  Artist, People, Needs

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

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• A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a pig-rooting, horse-snorting, band-playing, voice-screaming medieval get-together of greed, practical lust, compromised idealism, career-advancement, meeting, feud, vendetta, conciliation, of rabble-rousers, fist fights (as it used to be), embraces, drunks (again as it used to be) and collective rivers of animal sweat.

  Norman Mailer

  Horse, Fear, Fighting

  Norman Mailer (1968). “The idol and the octopus: political writings, on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations”

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• ...I have never known a movement in the theater that did not work direct and serious harm. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that the very people associated with various uplifting activities in the theater are people who are astoundingly lacking in idealism.

  Minnie Maddern Fiske

  Uplifting, People, Serious

  Minnie Maddern Fiske, Alexander Woollcott (1917). “Mrs. Fiske: Her Views on Actors, Acting, and the Problems of Production”

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• It is cynicism, and not idealism, that is generally the mark of youthful immaturity, or rather it is the cynic who is generally the most foolish romantic.

  Andrew Sarris

  Immaturity, Cynicism, Foolish

  Andrew Sarris (1996). “The American cinema: directors and directions, 1929-1968”, Da Capo Pr

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• True Americanism is practical idealism. Its aims, instead of being materialistic and mechanical, are idealistic to the point of being Utopian. In this way, the U.S. can provide and express ideals that strike a chord in humans everywhere - a declaration of independence on behalf of all the peoples of the world.

  Maurice Saatchi

  Independence, World, Way

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• Nothing has a more sinister effect on art than the artist's desire to prove that he's good. The terrible temptation of idealism!

  Philip Roth

  Art, Temptation, Desire

  Philip Roth (1998). “I Married a Communist”, p.230, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Spiritual science attempts to speak about non-sensory things in the same way that the natural sciences speak about sense-perceptible things...No one can ever deny others the right to ignore the supersensible, but there is never any legitimate reason for people to declare themselves authorities, not only on what they themselves are capable of knowing, but also on what they suppose cannot be known by any other human being.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Spiritual, Knowing, People

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• Bush is almost always clear when he's speaking cruelly. For example, when the subject is the punitive infliction of great pain, there is no problem with his syntax, grammar, or vocabulary, even if he happens to be lying. ... On the other hand, our president is extraordinarily tongue-tied when he's trying, off the cuff, to sound a note of idealism, magnanimity or -- especially -- compassion.

  Mark Crispin Miller

  Pain, Lying, Compassion

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• Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere. If hatred and sadism combine with modern technology the inferno could erupt anew anywhere.

  Simon Wiesenthal

  Technology, Hatred, Sadism

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• What is undeniable is that when comforts and convenience sap our energies and idealism, inactivity secretes sloth in to our minds like a poison in the blood.

  Os Guinness

  Blood, Sloth, Mind

  Os Guinness (2003). “The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life”, p.142, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.

  Oscar Niemeyer

  Badass, Bad Ass, Important

  "The Curves of Time: The Memoirs of Oscar Niemeyer". Book by Oscar Niemeyer, 1998.

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• For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols

  Aldous Huxley

  Religious, Spring, Idols

  Aldous Huxley (2003). “Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience”, Crossroad 8 Avenue

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• Wishes are recollections coming from the future.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Wish, Recollection

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• Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Realism, Immoral

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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

  Greatness, Compassion, Greed

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• ...I believe, with Gandhi, that we need to take an imaginative leap forward toward fresh and generous idealism for the sake of all humanity - that we neeed to renew this ancient wisdom of nonviolence, to strive for a disarmed world, and to create a culture of nonviolence.

  Mairead Corrigan

  Wisdom, Believe, Humanity

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• Don't become cynical. Don't give up hope. Don't believe that everything is judged only by expediency. There is idealism in this world. There is human brotherhood.

  Golda Meir

  Giving Up, Believe, Don't Give Up

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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

  Ambition, Vanity, Spy

  Max Lerner (1959). “The unfinished country: a book of American symbols”

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• The Church needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity, so that she can always be young in the Spirit.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Generosity, Church, Needs

  "Homily of his Holiness Benedict XVI". Holy Mass by Pope Benedict XVI for the 23rd World Youth Day at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Australia, w2.vatican.va. July 20, 2008.

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• Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Keys, Pragmatism, Effective Leadership

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• Paradoxically, capital has unleashed myriad objects upon us, in their manifold horror and sparkling splendor. Two hundred years of idealism, two hundred years of seeing humans at the center of existence, and now the objects take revenge, terrifyingly huge, ancient, long-lived, threateningly minute, invading every cell in our body.

  Timothy Morton

  Revenge, Cells, Years

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• The exclusion of true esoteric religion has been the business of the State since ancient times. At first this was done via the establishment of the popular idealism of exoteric religious institutions in league with the State. But in modern times the same process is done by the strategic exclusion of conventional religious cultism, mystical idealism, and higher evolutionary Wisdom from the mechanisms of popular culture.

  Adi Da

  Religious, League, Done

  Adi Da Samraj (1980). “Scientific proof of the existence of God will soon be announced by the White House!: prophetic wisdom about the myths and idols of mass culture and popular religious cultism, the new priesthood of scientific and political materialism, and the secrets of enlightenment hidden in the body of man”, Dawn Horse Pr

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