A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
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.
A perfect human being: Man in search of his ideal of perfection. Nothing less.
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.
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it is also more nourishing.
Don't use that foreign word ''ideals.'' We have that excellent native word ''lies.''
I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
Idealist: a cynic in the making.
Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.
Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.
Ideals are the worlds masters.
If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.
Instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not, we have to live and let live in order to create what we are.
It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.
It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet, I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.