I think in the ’70s that there was a general feeling of chaos, a feeling that the idea of the ’60s as ‚ideal‘ was a misnomer. Nothing seemed ideal anymore. Everything seemed in-between.

The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I’d say probably in the early ’70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, ‚cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.

The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal.

We talk about this concept of openness and transparency as the high-level ideal that we’re moving towards at Facebook. The way that we get there is by empowering people to share and connect. The combination of those two things leads the world to become more open.

While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving into that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s, I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music – not like a record that you’d put on, which would play for a while and finish.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

In retrospect, I do think it’s fair to say that we were overly idealistic and focused on more of the good parts of what connecting people and giving people a voice can bring.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

From the 1970s, there has been a significant change in the U.S. economy, as planners, private and state, shifted it toward financialization and the offshoring of production, driven in part by the declining rate of profit in domestic manufacturing.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

I can remember earning £5,000 a game playing for Hibs at the end of the Seventies. They let me commute from London, train on the Friday and play on Saturday. That lasted until my friends at the Inland Revenue decided to take two-thirds. That wasn’t very entertaining for me.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

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.

If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic.

Comedy isn’t necessarily all dialogue. Think of Buster Keaton: the poker face and all this chaos going on all around him. Sometimes it’s a question of timing, of the proper rhythm.

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

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You’d wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

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

In the ’60s and ’70s and early ’80s, the trainers would grind you, and eventually they would break something – they would break an ankle in ways that it would heal. It was just the way of the business, to ensure that you learned respect for wrestling.

I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose… it’ll be much harder to detect.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

In the ’70s, terrorism was much more serious, in that many more people got killed.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

Now I realize that from ’72 through to about ’76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.

Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.

In Latin America, specialists and polling organisations have, for some time, observed that the extension of formal democracy was accompanied by an increasing disillusionment about democracy and a lack of faith in democratic institutions.

I have always seen the United States as a force of good. And I have learned that there is the idealistic part about what we can do at the U.N. and there is a doable part. And I have learned what is more doable.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

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.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.

After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.

I cycled when I was at high school, then reconnected with bikes in New York in the late ’70s. It was a good way of getting around the clubs and galleries of the Lower East Side and Soho.

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

You can say, ‚Well, isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine‘ – well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter, because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything.

It’s a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don’t sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

There’s the chaos surrounding the practical day-to-day – playdates, doctors‘ appointments, packing and unpacking, and organizing mealtimes.

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.