Top 40 Idealist Quotes

Really, I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady, you know, ‘tough this and tough that.’ Then there is this business about ‘gooey.’ The bottom line is I am a pragmatic idealist.

Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I’m a little bit more of a realist now. I think there’s a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it’s more about choosing your battles.

I am kind of an idealist but I became a DUP member because I believe politics should have a footing in harsh reality.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

Idealist: a cynic in the making.

Politics is not a game for naive thinkers. You may go in as an idealist, but you certainly won’t come out as one.

The democratic idealist is prone to make light of the whole question of standards and leadership because of his unbounded faith in the plain people.

For the establishment, philosophy is both an elitist and an idealist discipline: In high school, it is a compulsory subject; at university, they teach the idealist line. They are conducting a conversation with themselves.

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

Too often people view idealists as naive.

What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.

Mohammed Ali. He’s much more than a boxer. He’s also a passionate idealist who fought for his people. I respect him – and, of course, he was very handsome in his younger days.

You’re an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

I am a realist as well as an idealist, and I think that it is incumbent upon those of us in opposition to try to work within what are always arduous circumstances to stretch the limits of the possible.

The early idealists and companies and governments have all assumed that the Internet will bring freedom. Yet China proves that this is not the case.

The Minimalists are idealist. They want to minimize themselves in favor of the ideal… But I just can’t. You see, my paintings are not cool.

An idealist believes the short run doesn’t count. A cynic believes the long run doesn’t matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.

I wanted to do journalism, as I was an idealist. Then, in my second year of journalism, I realized that in real life, things don’t work the way you expect them to. I realized that I could express my ideas better through films.

The idealists will always be in society, and we will survive.

Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal – because I’m an idealist.

The idealist walks on tiptoe, the materialist on his heels.

When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.

I’m an idealist.

I would agree that President Carter didn’t live up to the expectation we all had when he came in 1976. My husband and I were young idealists who worked on his campaign.

Don’t make me into this airy-fairy, moralist, idealist because I’m not.

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt… Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

What is Southern California but an ever-changing dreamscape backdrop for the postmodern ideal? The psychology of the postmodern world is the continual state of change as we live in its idealist manufactured dream, built by developers.

I’m not an idealist. I know we’re not going to be living in a world that’s peace and love all the time. But we can live in a world where we kill each other a lot less.

I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher.

No, I didn’t think of myself as an idealist. I consider myself as a believer in what I regard as the Labour Party’s basic principles, which have to do with equality and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. You know, the golden rules.

I wanted to do comedy because I left Malaysia and went to America. I got bitten by the Western, idealist, opinionated, democracy bug.

My father is a real idealist, and he’s all about learning. If I asked for a pair of Nikes growing up, it was just a resounding ‘No.’ But if I asked for a saxophone, one would appear and next day and I’d be signed up for lessons. So anything to do with education or learning, my father would spare no expense.

Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must.

I’m still a bit of a romantic and an idealist and hopelessly naive.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

I’ve never understood the division between so-called realists and so-called idealists.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

I am an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on my way.