Associations to the word «Idealism»

Wiktionary

IDEALISM, noun. The property of a person of having high ideals that are usually unrealizable or at odds with practical life.
IDEALISM, noun. The practice or habit of giving or attributing ideal form or character to things; treatment of things in art or literature according to ideal standards or patterns, opposed to realism.
IDEALISM, noun. (philosophy) An approach to philosophical enquiry which asserts that direct and immediate knowledge can only be had of ideas or mental pictures.

Dictionary definition

IDEALISM, noun. (philosophy) the philosophical theory that ideas are the only reality.
IDEALISM, noun. Impracticality by virtue of thinking of things in their ideal form rather than as they really are.
IDEALISM, noun. Elevated ideals or conduct; the quality of believing that ideals should be pursued.

Wise words

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne