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.

Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.

Idealistic world views should be our focus.

If I had a, yeah, like if my wish came true, we would have a perfect world and people like us wouldn't be needed but hey, it is what it is.

A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others.

The idealist is incorrigible: if he be thrown out of his Heaven, he makes himself a suitable ideal out of Hell.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

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

God, when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man.

Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.

Don't use that foreign word ideals. We have that excellent native word lies.

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

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step: only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.

If two or three persons should come with a high spiritual aim and with great powers, the world would fall into their hands like a ripe peach.

Our bodies can be mobilized by law and police and men with guns, if necessary-but where shall we find that which will make us believe in what we must do, so that we can fight through to victory?

Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.

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