Quotes & Sayings About Idealism And Reality

Idealism, unrealistic idealism, is always contrasted with the reality of the people, of the man in the street. The details of daily life are always more convincing than the political fantasies of the earlier generations. — Orhan Pamuk

My life of conversation leads me to reimagine the very meaning of hope. I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth. It lives open eyed and wholeheartedly with the darkness that is woven ineluctably into the light of life and sometimes seems to overcome it. Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. — Krista Tippett

The mind is not forced to believe in the existence of anything (subjectivism, absolute idealism, solipsism, skepticism: c.f. the Upanishads, the Taoists and Plato, who, all of them, adopt this philosophical attitude by way of purification). That is why the only organ of contact with existence is acceptance, love. That is why beauty and reality are identical. That is why joy and the sense of reality are identical. — Simone Weil

We women are weak," replied Bimala. "So I suppose we must join in the conspiracy of the weak."
"Women weak!" I exclaimed with a laugh. "Men belaud you as delicate and fragile, so as to delude you into thinking yourselves weak. But it is you women who are strong. Men make a great outward show of their so-called freedom, but those who know their inner minds are aware of their bondage. They have
manufactured scriptures with their own hands to bind themselves; with their very idealism they have made golden fetters of women to wind round their body and mind. If men had not that extraordinary faculty of entangling themselves in meshes of their own contriving, nothing could have kept them bound. But as for
you women, you have desired to conceive reality with body and soul. You have given birth to reality. You have suckled reality at your breasts. — Rabindranath Tagore

The evils of envy and hatred masquerading as humanitarian idealism had darkened his life from its outset, stamping him as a man quick to search for the reality behind the expression of fine sentiments. — Theodore Dalrymple

Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality. — Clarence Day Jr.

I am a commuter, not between the city and the village, although I do this frequently; not between the inane idealism of the classroom and the stifling reality beyond it, which I must do for survival and self-respect. I am a commuter between what I am now and what I was and would like to be and it is this commuting at lightning speed, at the oddest hours, that has done havoc to me. — F. Sionil Jose

In reality the universe has no geometry. — Kedar Joshi

Idealism, though just in its premises, and often daring and honest in their application, is stultified by the exclusive intellectualism of its own methods: by its fatal trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart. It interests man, but does not involve him in its processes: does not catch him up to the new and more real life which it describes. Hence the thing that matters, the living thing, has somehow escaped it; and its observations bear the same relation to reality as the art of the anatomist does to the mystery of birth. — Evelyn Underhill

Realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul, and it is only through idealism that we resume contact with reality. — Henri Bergson

It would be perfect if everyone who makes love, is in love, but this is simply an unrealistic expectation. I'd say 75 percent of the population of people who make love, are not in love, this is simply the reality of the human race, and to be idealistic about this is to wait for the stars to aline and Jupiter to change color; for the Heavens to etch your names together in the sky before you make love to someone. But idealism is immaturity, and as a matter of fact, the stars may never aline, Jupiter may never change color, and the Heavens may never ever etch your names together in the sky for you to have the never-ending permission to make endless love to one another. And so the bottom line is, there really is no difference between doing something today, and doing something tomorrow, because today is what you have, and tomorrow may not turn out the way you expect it to. At the end of the day, sex is an animalistic, humanistic, passionate desire. — C. JoyBell C.

See the exquisite contrast of the types of mind! The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at its work in particular cases, and generalises. Truth, for him, becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working-values in experience. For the rationalist it remains a pure abstraction, to the bare name of which we must defer. When the pragmatist undertakes to show in detail just why we must defer, the rationalist is unable to recognise the concretes from which his own abstraction is taken. He accuses us of denying truth; whereas we have only sought to trace exactly why people follow it and always ought to follow it. Your typical ultra-abstractions fairly shudders at concreteness: other things equal, he positively prefers the pale and spectral. If the two universes were offered, he would always choose the skinny outline rather than the rich thicket of reality. It is so much purer, clearer, nobler. — William James

A realist is a slave to reality. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We let rip with idealism and grand words, but it's nothing but rationalizations of our own egoistic behavior. Not only do we lie to others; we also lie to ourselves. Each one of us lives inside a house of mirrors -- our own instinctive self-righteousness distorts the way we view reality so that we can justify our actions to ourselves. And there's no way we can escape. — Christian Jungersen

Because we are so focused on the real world, we keep forgetting how fantasy-driven the Left really is....As with orthodox Marxists, the left adamantly believes it is "Progressive", implying that its adherents know the inevitable and virtuous outcome of history. In the Soviet Union the Party truly believed every five years that Stalin's commands to fix agriculture were bound to work....Lenin and Stalin killed tens of millions of "rich peasants" without ever learning how to feed their country. — James Lewis

Idealism is just an escape from reality. There is no utopia. — Libba Bray

Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism. — Germaine Greer

Our civilization is first and foremost a civilization of means; in the reality of modern life, the means, it would seem, are more important than the ends. Any other assessment of the situation is mere idealism. — Jacques Ellul

They wish to build a new and better world, and I would be glad if they could succeed, and if I saw any hope of success I would join them. I ask for their plans, and they offer me vague dreams, in which as a man of affairs, I see no practicality. Is is like the the end of Das Rheingold: there is Valhalla, very beautiful, but only a rainbow bridge on which to get to it, and while the gods ma be able to walk on a rainbow, my investors and working people cannot. — Upton Sinclair

Reality - Dreams = Animal Being Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism) Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism) Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism Dreams + Humor = Fantasy Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom — Lin Yutang

Living is a constant process of debunking our romantic notions of how our personal life will unfold. Reality oftentimes fails to meet a person's glamorous expectations. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive. — William F. Buckley Jr.

Centuries and centuries of idealism have not failed to influence reality — Jorge Luis Borges

Honesty can sometimes be so brutal to take in. It's usual to get so drowned in perceived idealism that you can't seem to separate it from honest reality. If, and when, you can separate the two, the gaiety of fantasy is destroyed — Ufuoma Apoki

Ideals without power are simply words - they can come alive only when reinforced by the capacity to act. Reality is understanding how to wield power, but by itself it doesn't guide you toward the ends to which your power should be put. Realism devoid of an understanding of the ends of power is frequently another word for thugishness, which is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly, idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can be corrected only by a profound understanding of power in its complete sense, while realism uncoupled from principle is frequently incompetence masquerading as tough-mindedness. Realism and idealism are not alternatives but necessary complements. Neither can serve as a principle for foreign policy by itself. — George Friedman

I prefer true over happy now. — Julianna Baggott

By understanding the world I mean being equal to the world. It is the hard reality of living that is the essential, not the concept of life, that the ostrich philosophy of idealism propounds. — Oswald Spengler

In more ways than any of us can name, love is wrapped up with the idea of expectation. — Sharon Salzberg

A youth is susceptible to the influence of idealist notions. As a person ages, they notice a gap between their expectations and reality and they grow more pessimistic about the world and their ability to live up to the lofty notions that inspired a younger self. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Unfulfilled dreams, ongoing relational tension, the loss of friendships, a hard marriage, rebellious teenagers, the death of loved ones, remaining sinful patterns - whatever it is for you - live long enough, lose enough, suffer enough, and the idealism of youth fades, leaving behind the reality of life in a broken world as a broken person. — Tullian Tchividjian

For if we regard space and time as properties that must, as regards their possibility, be found in things in themselves, [ ... ] then we really cannot blame the good Bishop Berkeley for degrading bodies to mere illusion. Nay, even our own existence, which would thus be made dependent on the self-subsistent reality of a non-entity such as time, would, along with this time, be changed into mere illusion - an absurdity of which hitherto no one has been guilty. — Immanuel Kant

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough.
The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others. — Mary C. Lamia

have learned that the process of teaching and learning, of communication, involves movement, back and forth: the one who is healed and the one who is healing constantly change places. As we begin to understand ourselves, we begin to understand others. It is part of the process of moving from idealism to reality, from the sky to the earth. We do not have to be perfect or to deny our emotions. — Jean Vanier

People don't want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it is better. You want to teach about sex? Fine, but only when they're old enough to do it. You want to talk politics? Sure, but nothing modern. Religion? So long as you don't actually think about it. Otherwise some furious mob will come to your house and burn you for a witch. — Nick Harkaway

Reality is what people who lack vision see. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana