#idealism

As long as the vision of heaven is always changing, the vision of earth will be exactly the same. No ideal will remain long enough to be realized, or even partly realized. The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#heaven #idealism #progress #change

Being an idealist is not being a simpleton; without idealists there would be no optimism and without optimism there would be no courage to achieve advances that so-called realists would have you believe could never come to fruition. ↗

— Alisa Steinberg

#optimism #realists #courage

A historian ought to be exact, sincere and impartial; free from passion, unbiased by interest, fear, resentment or affection; and faithful to the truth, which is the mother of history the preserver of great actions, the enemy of oblivion, the witness of the past, the director of the future. ↗

— B.R. Ambedkar

#idealism #faith

To try to reform all the power structures at once would leave us with no power structure to use in our project. In any case, we will be able to see that absolute moral renewal could be attempted only by an absolute power and that a tyrannous force such as this must destroy the whole moral life of man, not renew it. ↗

— Michael Polanyi

#tyranny #life

Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist. ↗

— George Carlin

#disillusionment #idealism #disappointment

Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist — someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations. ↗

— Peter M. Senge

#idealism #cynicism

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. ↗

— Morris Raphael Cohen

#be true #been #divided #false #generally

In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me. ↗

— Billy Corgan

#attain #could #i #idealism #kind

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. ↗

— William Irwin Thompson

#because #chaos #dangerous #hysterical #idealism

Idealism loses to pragmatism when it comes to winning elections. ↗

— Danny Strong

#elections #idealism #loses #pragmatism #winning