Quotes About Idealism

An idealist is one who helps the other fellow to make a profit.

— Henry Ford

To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man.

— G. K. Chesterton

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

— H. L. Mencken

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

— Bertrand Russell

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit: divorced from it, they remain barren.

— Bertrand Russell

Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man...you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.

— Carl Shurz

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

— Carl Sandburg

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.

— John Galsworthy

America is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.

— John Gunther

Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow.  And politics is the bow of idealism.

— Bill Moyers

It’s a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

— Andrew Young

The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson’s on the main drag into maturity.

— Paul Theroux