Utopian Ideals Quotes

I am opposed to socialism because it dreams ingenuously of good, truth, beauty, and equal rights.

What can we be certain of from history? That human beings have been wrong innumerable times, by vast amounts, and with catastrophic results. Yet today there are still people who think that anyone who disagrees with them must be either bad or not know what he is talking about…Students can graduate from even the most prestigious colleges and universities wholly unaware that there are not simply different opinions about particular issues but a whole comprehensive framework of ideas and analysis through which those issues can be seen in a way that leads to very different conclusions from the ones their professors have taught or insinuated…It is a shame that ancient history is seldom taught in our schools. Finding out that people thousands of years ago were basically pretty much the way they are today — people of every race, color, creed, national origin, political ideology and sexual orientation—would reduce our chances of having Utopian hopes for big changes any time soon.

The point, as Marx saw it, is that dreams never come true.

Statesmen think in terms of history and view society as an organism. Prophets are different since they believe absolute aims can be achieved in the foreseeable future. More people have been killed by crusaders than by statesmen.

The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn't work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.

That democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who wish it would be prepared to accept the consequences, many will not believe until the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

I am for Socialism because I am for humanity.

… utopian social engineering

It is all very well to idealise poverty and associate wisdom with begging bowls, or virtue with low estate. However, those who have done this (Buddhists, Christians, Communists and other fanatics) have dead ended or are dead ending

Without the Utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked. It was Utopians who traced the lines of the first City.....Out of generous dreams come beneficial realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better future.

Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.

The past has prepared all the materials and means of superabundance to well-feed, clothe, lodge, train, educate, employ, amuse, and govern the human race in perpetual progressive prosperity- without war, conflict, or competition between nations or individuals.

Politics are about power; we cannot evade that truth or its consequences. We dream of a better world but it is in Utopia - that is, nowhere.

I think in a sense seeing how films have changed me and seeing how fiction moves me more than facts in many ways, and I think that I can talk for many people that fiction moves us more than real life, it certainly helps us to set forth on this a journey of a utopia, which can never be achieved.

No Utopia is Utopia for everyone

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.

We have ground for believing that a noble form of socialism existed among the prehistoric and primitive people on this planet, the people that broke into restless groups after the ancient Deluge and went wandering over the globe. For we find a socialist tendency in all the barbaric tribes of earth.

To want a job that exercises a man's capacities in an enterprise useful to society, is utopian anarcho-syndicalism; it is labor invading the domain of management. No labor leader has entertained such a thought in our generation. Management has the "sole prerogative" to determine the products.

The Work we are going about is this, To dig up Georges-Hill and the waste Ground thereabouts, and to Sow Corn, and to eat our bread together by the sweat of our brows.

Or you can be like the Soviet Union, start out with ideals, and end up ceasing to exist.

I think that Utopia is a theory of human action.

Revolutions are all based on the false idea that humans and their nature can be changed.