Quotes on Idealism

Life is called Samsara - it is the result of the conflicting forces acting upon us. Materialism says, "The voice of freedom is a delusion." Idealism says, "The voice that tells of bondage is but a dream." Vedanta says, "We are free and not free at the same time." That means that we are never free on the earthly plane, but ever free on the spiritual side. The Self is beyond both freedom and bondage. We are Brahman, we are immortal knowledge beyond the senses, we are Bliss Absolute.

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.

There's no reason to assume that my idea of what's better would really be better. I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don't think they know. And I can't see any authority on the horizon that's got any answers that seem worthwhile. Most of the things that are suggested are probably detrimental to your mental health.

There are no letters in the mailbox_x000D_ _x000D_ And there are no grapes upon the vine_x000D_ _x000D_ And there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore_x000D_ _x000D_ And there are no diamonds in the mine

Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.

If your children want to alter society, listen to their reasons and the idealism behind them. Don't crush them with some clever remark straight away.

I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

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

That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds.

Idealism is the death of the body and the imagination. All but freedom, utter freedom, is death

Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.

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

Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men.

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

What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants.

Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.