Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted they are dwarfed and overshadowed.

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.

Let hope inspire you, but let not idealism blind you. Don't look back, you can never look back.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

A lot of my idealism was frustrated by the end of the '60s because of the way things went with the assassinations and the sense that the political establishment was so fixed in its ways you couldn't change anything.

He 's ruthless only because of his ideals. Unfortunately he doesn't succeed. The thing fails and gets out of hand and takes charge of him. Idealism is the only excuse he could have and it's a great excuse.

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.

Idealistic reformers are dangerous because their idealism has no roots in love, but is simply a hysterical and unbalanced rage for order amidst their own chaos.

By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

If you didn't have some sense of idealism, then what is there to sustain you?

The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.

I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known.

Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.

Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.

It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one.

Only through the conscious action of the working masses in city and country can it be brought to life, only through the people's highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it be brought safely through all storms and find its way to port.

The enemy of idealism is zealotry.

Even when Darwin's teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its scientific, materialist core, its teaching concerning the evolution of living nature, was antagonistic to the idealism that reigned in biology.

The other aspect of idealism is the one which gives us our notion of the absolute Self. To it the first is only preparatory. This second aspect is the one which from Kant, until the present time, has formed the deeper problem of thought.

Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.

At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism.

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.

Over the past decade... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.

The nature of journalism has been the enemy of idealism and the source of cynicism among American reporters and editors throughout our history.

If a young person has any idealism at all, it's strongest about the time he finishes college.

And all this effort, all this loss of comradeship, all this prostitution of idealism and manhood, to assist the capitalists of this country to defeat the proletariat!

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.

If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough - you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal.

Whatever happened to a sense of idealism and embracing an idea that will help people and, in this case, children?

The fact is, beneath the hype, Iraqis will soon appreciate American help and idealism far more than French perfidy. It is never wrong to be on the side of freedom - never.

The natural idealism of youth is an idealism, alas, for which we do not always provide as many outlets as we should.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

The sublimated idealism of the Enlightenment, the spirit of the League of Nations and of the United Nations Charter have not proved strong enough to control the aggressive dynamism of nationalism.

This preparatory sort of idealism is the one that, as I just suggested, Berkeley made prominent, and, after a fashion familiar. I must state it in my own way, although one in vain seeks to attain novelty in illustrating so frequently described a view.

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

Idealism that makes no distinction between areas where our national interest lies and those from which it is remote does no good for America. The weariness of the post-Versailles, post-Korea, post-Vietnam eras is never far from the national mood.

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

But it is well to remember that we are dealing with nations every one of which has a direct individual interest to serve, and there is grave danger in an unshared idealism.

It is instructive, for instance, to trace the computer industry's decline in vision, idealism, creativity, romance and sheer fun as it becomes more and more important and prosperous.

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.