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

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.

Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.

It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for.

I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.

It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!

To buy very good wine nowadays requires only money. To serve it to your guests is a sign of fatigue.

I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word "fair" in connection with income tax policies.

One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.

All adventure is now reactionary.

Some of my instincts are reprehensible.

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it and one is the feeling that I haven't just been sitting on my ass all afternoon.

Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.

Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.

The majority of the senior class of Vassar does not desire my company and I must confess, having read specimens of their thought and sentiments, that I do not desire the company of the majority of the senior class of Vassar.

Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.

It seems to me that the idea traditionally defended of endeavoring to maintain existing ethnic balances simply doesn't work any more.

Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.

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

The more complicated and powerful the job, the more rudimentary the preparation for it.

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'

We love your adherence to democratic principles.

Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed - different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgement of defeat.

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.

The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling.Stop

I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

The superstition that the hounds of truth will rout the vermin of error seems, like a fragment of Victorian lace, quaint, but too brittle to be lifted out of the showcase.

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.