“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.”
Sydney J. Harris
“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
“The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“Someone once asked me whether I am an idealist or a dreamer. I'm neither. I consider myself an optimistic realist. I see reality, but I give it the benefit of the doubt.”
Kate Miller
“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”
George Carlin
“The most perplexing form of evil, and especially so for all idealists, is that kind of evil which comes out of our efforts to do good. Perhaps when we try to do good without love, we create evil.”
“I'm an idealist without illusions.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
