Idealism Quotes - Page 16

• All students enter law school with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after three years of brutal competition we care for nothing but the right job with the right firm where we can make partner in seven years and earn big bucks.

  John Grisham

  Jobs, School, Years

  John Grisham (1995). “The Rainmaker”, Bantam Dell Publishing Group

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• Sad that our finest aspiration, Our freshest dreams and meditations, In swift succession should decay, Like Autumn leaves that rot away.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Dream, Autumn, Meditation

  "Eugene Onegin". Book by Alexander Pushkin, 1833.

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• 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.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Believe, Passion, Garden

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• Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend.

  Anne Lamott

  True Friend, Mean, Artist

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.32, Anchor

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• But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Destiny, Challenges, Society

  The Great Society, delivered 22 May 1964, Ann Arbor, MI

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• I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Real, Taken, Hands

  "The Rum Diary". Book by Hunter S. Thompson, 1998.

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• Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived...Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation... Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.

  Anne Lamott

  Children, True Friend, Mean

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• Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Character, Birth Place, Principles

  Theodore Roosevelt (2015). “Theodore Roosevelt on Bravery: Lessons from the Most Courageous Leader of the Twentieth Century”, p.36, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.

  Robert Kennedy

  Country, Hands, Atheism

  Robert F. Kennedy (1967). “To seek a newer world”, Doubleday Books

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• I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Peace, Hate, War

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