Idealist Quotes - Page 8

• Truth, though, is nothing in the face of self-falsehood, and principles are of no value if the idealist cannot live up to his own standards.

  R. A. Salvatore

  Self, Principles, Faces

  R.A. Salvatore (2009). “Homeland: The Legend of Drizzt”, p.256, Wizards of the Coast

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• Although sometimes I might sound sometimes idealist or too optimistic but I think my father used to say to me in everything bad there's something good that is going to come out of it and there will always be a tomorrow.

  Saad Hariri

  Father, Optimistic, Thinking

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• [I]n contrast to the common belief that they are the world's greatest cynics, the best journalists are the world's great idealists. They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence. For every disgrace there is triumph, for every wrong there is a moment of justice, for every funeral a wedding, for every obituary a birth announcement.

  Anna Quindlen

  Justice, Funeral, Balance

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• God save us from idealists! They dream of a world without injustice, and what crime won't they commit to get it! I swear, Mirella, I'll settle for a world with good manners.

  Mary Doria Russell

  Dream, World, Injustice

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• Jesus, in fact, was typical of a certain kind of fanatical young idealist: at one moment holding forth, with tears in his eyes, about the need for universal love; at the next, furiously denouncing the morons, crooks and bigots who did not see eye to eye with him. It is very natural and very human behaviour. But it is not superhuman.

  Margaret E. Knight

  Jesus, Eye, Tears

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• [Some] people really expect the passion of love to fill and gratify every need of life, whereas nature only intended that it should meet one of many demands. They insist on making it stand for all the emotional pleasures of life and art; expecting an individual and self-limited passion to yield infinite variety, pleasure, and distraction, and to contribute to their lives what the arts and the pleasurable exercise of the intellect gives to less limited and less intense idealists.

  Willa Cather

  Art, Passion, Exercise

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Essential Willa Cather Collection”, p.331, eBookIt.com

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• First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Next, Fool, Firsts

  Ellen Glasgow (1900). “The Descendant”

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• Our dreams of bringing the whole of human history under the control of the human will are ironically refuted by the fact that no group of idealists can easily move the pattern of history toward the desired goal of peace and justice. The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Dream, Drama, Moving

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.551, Library of America

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• Honor to the idealists, whether philosophers or poets. They have improved us by mingling with our daily pursuits great and transcendent conceptions. They have thrown around our sensual life the grandeur of a better, and drawn us up from contacts with the temporal and the selfish to communion with beauty and truth and goodness.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Selfish, Sensual, Honor

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• All cynics are disappointed idealists. The more stars in the eyes, the harder the fall.

  Josh Lanyon

  Stars, Fall, Eye

  Josh Lanyon (2010). “Fair Game”, p.112, Carina Press

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• Our idealists must own that their velleity to abolish all suffering is most fully expressed in the Fifth Wisdom of Lamaism, the doctrine that teaches that "no durable happiness, nor yet security, for any sentient being can exist while others are a prey to suffering." That truth cannot be questioned and you may take it to heart: in practical terms it means we got ourselves born on the wrong planet - in the wrong universe.

  Revilo P. Oliver

  Heart, Mean, Suffering

  "On the Roof of the World". "Liberty Bell" Magazine, December 1987.

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• Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. The measure of all things.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Men, Unity, Quality

  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Book by Robert M. Pirsig, Ch. 29, 1974.

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• Which is more remarkable fact about America: that millionaires are idealists or idealists become millionaires.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  America, Facts, Millionaire

  "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann". Book by S. Rajasekar and N. Athavan, 2006.

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• In the construction of a country, it is not the practical workers but the idealists and planners that are difficult to find.

  Sun Yat-sen

  Country, Construction, Difficult

  "Chung-shan Ch'üan-shu (Zhongshan Quanshu), vol. II". Book by Sun Yat-sen, 1936.

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• The reclusive man who marries the gregarious woman, the timid woman who marries the courageous man, the idealist who marries the realist we can all see these unions: the marriages in which tenderness meets loyalty, where generosity sweetens moroseness, where a sense of beauty eases some aridity of the spirit, are not so easy for outsiders to recognize; the parties themselves may not be fully aware of such elements in a good match.

  Robertson Davies

  Loyalty, Party, Men

  "The Pleasures of Love". 1961.

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• Man is by nature a pragmatic materialist, a mechanic, a lover of gadgets and gadgetry; and these are the qualities that characterize the "establishment" which regulates modern society: pragmatism, materialism, mechanization, and gadgetry. Woman, on the other hand, is a practical idealist, a humanitarian with a strong sense of noblesse oblige, an altruist rather than a capitalist.

  Elizabeth Gould Davis

  Strong, Men, Hands

  "The First Sex". Book by Elizabeth Gould Davis. Chapter 22: "Woman in the Aquarian Age", 1971.

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• Personal, inner change without a change in circumstances and structures is an idealist illusion, as though man were only a soul and not a body as well.

  Jürgen Moltmann

  Men, Soul, Body

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• We come to think of an idealist as one who seeks to realize what is not in fact realizable. But, it is necessary to insist, to have ideals is not the same as to have impracticable ideals, however often it may be the case that our ideals are impracticable.

  Susan Stebbing

  Thinking, May, Facts

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• [W]e must first experience the kingdom if we are even to know what kind of freedom and what kind of equality we should desire. Christian freedom lies in service, Christian equality is equality before God, and neither can be achieved through the coercive efforts of liberal idealists who would transform the world into their image.

  Stanley Hauerwas

  Christian, Lying, Effort

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• Im still an idealist. My manager is always trying to talk me out of it, but thats just the way I am.

  Ariel Rechtshaid

  Always Trying, Stills, Managers

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• I may be a businessman in that I set up and run companies for profit, but when I try to plan ahead and dream up new products and new companies, I'm an idealist.

  Richard Branson

  Leadership, Running, Dream

  Richard Branson (1999). “Losing my virginity: how I've survived, had fun, and made a fortune doing business my way”, Crown Business

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• Scratch the surface of any cynic, and you will find a wounded idealist underneath. Because of previous pain or disappointment, cynics make their conclusions about life before the questions have even been asked. This means that beyond just seeing what is wrong with the world, cynics lack the courage to do something about it. The dynamic beneath cynicism is a fear of accepting responsibility.

  John Ortberg

  Pain, Disappointment, Mean

  John Ortberg (2010). “Know Doubt: The Importance of Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith (Large Print 16pt)”, p.148, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I'm not an idealist anymore, I'm a bitter realist.

  Soe Hok Gie

  Bitter, Realist

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• When I say that terrorism is war against civilization, I may be met by the objection that terrorists are often idealists pursuing worthy ultimate aims -- national or regional independence, and so forth. I do not accept this argument. I cannot agree that a terrorist can ever be an idealist, or that the objects sought can ever justify terrorism. The impact of terrorism, not merely on individual nations, but on humanity as a whole, is intrinsically evil, necessarily evil and wholly evil.

  Benjamin Netanyahu

  War, Impact, Civilization

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• Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not "idealistic," no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Stupidity, Lust

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