303 Quotes About Idealism

The decision as to whether to risk one’s actual life or to surrender the ideal self-conception is a decision about who one is.(from The structure of desire and recognition)

I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be so and painted only the ideal aspects of it - pictures in which there are no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers . . . only foxy grandpas who played baseball with kids and boys who fished from logs and got up circuses in the back yard.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

Always take care of your people who are very close to you. Prioritize them. Give them lessons & examples of integrity. They will automatically intelligent & energetic. Don't worry about the rest. Sometimes people come in your life for short & spoil your idealism you never needed.

I'm not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?

It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off

A youth is susceptible to the influence of idealist notions. As a person ages, they notice a gap between their expectations and reality and they grow more pessimistic about the world and their ability to live up to the lofty notions that inspired a younger self.

And it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were - and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings anymore.

She has the flames of passion emanating from deep within her soul. She has the embers of idealism burning in her heart!