Gustav Heinemann Quotes

You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy.

That has been my entire life story. Running against the current and running with the current. Sometimes running with the current is underestimated. The acceptance of certain realities doesn’t preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.

The days of idealism had gone. Only life was left.

Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything.

Idealism loses to pragmatism when it comes to winning elections.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

We know the ideal isn't where the action is.

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

What we need most, is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real.

I'm a realist.

You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It's very real. It's very strong.

Government is the art of the momentarily feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough--you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal. In other words, you need to be pragmatic.

What I've learned is that life is a balance between idealism and realism.

God save me from idealists.

In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.

Realism has always been called cynicism.

The difference between me and people like Murray Rothbard is that, though I want to know what my ideal is, I think I also have to be willing to discuss changes that are less than ideal so long as they point me in that direction.

You can use your idealism to further your aims, if you realize that nothing is Nirvana, nothing is perfect.

I'd describe myself as a pragmatist tinged with idealism.

The preoccupation with what should be is estimable only when the respect for what is has been exhausted.

Idealism and realism meet in the actual.

There's evil in the world, all right. Being aware of it makes you a realist, not a paranoid.

Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.