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Utopian   /jutˈoʊpiən/   Listen
Utopian

adjective
1.
Of or pertaining to or resembling a utopia.
2.
Characterized by or aspiring to impracticable perfection.  "Utopian idealists" , "Recognized the utopian nature of his hopes"



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"Utopian" Quotes from Famous Books



... candidates had been nothing to brag of, and willingly would she support the right woman for President. If Victoria lived up to the high standard of the Woodhull Memorial, then even she might be that woman. After all, it was an era of radical theories and Utopian dreams, of extravagances of every ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... one's employees and allies, one's friends and agents, to repel the dishonest and rebuke the impudent, dealing with those whom one chooses to deal with, where personal choice can fairly be exercised; but such a privilege is Utopian in business, even among men of fortune, and envied Ritchie has little more freedom than humble Jones. Besides, the pursuit of startling success, though it often ruins possibilities of contentment, rarely creates them. Frederic Soulie, having had the misfortune to gain $16,000 in ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... the political architect should give heed. An equality of conditions, of political powers and privileges, which has no solid basis in an equality of capacity or fitness, is one of the wildest and most impracticable of all Utopian dreams. If in the divine government such an equality should prevail, it is evident that all order would be overthrown, all justice extinguished, and utter confusion would reign. In like manner, if in human government such equality should exist, it would ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... 1509 a handsome youth of eighteen came to the throne, the hopes of England ran high. His intelligence, his frank, genial manners, his sympathy with the "new learning," won all classes. Erasmus in his hopes of purifying the Church, and Sir Thomas More in his "Utopian" dreams for politics and society, felt that a friend had come to the throne in the young ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... the near future, and was mixed with less worthy political ambitions which had a different origin. The prophet always foreshortens his revelation, and generally blends the city of God with a vision of his own country transfigured. We see him doing this even to-day, in his Utopian ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... that Mrs Lammle looked at her young friend in some astonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers in a pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But this latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great inoffensive ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... Bob, thus forming his Utopian plans, forgot the tedium of the trail. No person is so happy as when doing something to make some other person happy. And Bob was happy because he believed he was to be the means of bringing happiness to ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace

... a miser might do. With it, he was free from these carking cares that were making his mind foul and muddy. If he had money! Slow, cool visions of triumphs rose before him outlined on the years to come, practical, if Utopian. Slow and sure successes of science and art, where his brain could work, helpful and growing. Far off, yet surely to come,—surely for him,—a day to come when a pure social system should be universal, should have thrust out its fibres of light knitting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... the schools which had received the Greek wisdom. In course of time a period of intoxication came upon him. He imagined that he was to bring about a new church which he everywhere calls the Kingdom of God. His views were Utopian; he lived in a dream life, and his idealism elevated him above all other agitators. He founded a sect, and his disciples became intoxicated with his own dreams. But he did not sanction all their excesses: for instance, he did not believe the inexact and contradictory ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... Academy of Music was but a fleeting incident, memorable only for the protestations with which it was begun and for its brevity. For the famous Norwegian violinist it was a Utopian dream with a speedy and rude awakening. After he had retired the Lagrange troupe came from downtown and completed the season with the help of the stockholders, and Maretzek, the erstwhile impresario and lessee, became the conductor. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... interests were paramount to the great interests of the territory, which, at the critical period when the seeds of prosperity should have been planted, was fatal to our advancement. Next came the era of Utopian projects of internal improvement, by which our people were saddled with an onerous load of debt. In the mean time immigrants were misled by false reports concerning the character of the soil in the interior of the State, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... "I am not an Utopian," continued young Norman. "Law and custom permit—not to say sanctify—our sort of business. So—I do my best. But I shall not conceal from you that it's distasteful to me. I wish to get out of it. I shall get out as soon as I've made enough capital to assure me the income I ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... barometer. Trade was brisk with Snelling, and a brass band was playing national airs on a staging erected on the green in front of the post-office. Nightly meetings took place at Grimsey's Hall, and the audiences were good-humored and orderly. Torrini advanced some Utopian theories touching a universal distribution of wealth, which were listened to attentively, but failed ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... regime and yet aloof from the worse follies of the demagogues who now rage in the country. Vastly less picturesque than Blasco Ibanez, he is nearer the normal Spaniard—the Spaniard who, in the long run, must erect a new structure of society upon the half archaic and half Utopian chaos now reigning in the peninsula. Thus his book, though it is addressed to Spaniards, should have a certain value for English-speaking readers. And ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... sympathy, never; but mark you, this does not commit me to compliance with all your Utopian schemes. If you were raving mad, I should sympathize, but nevertheless I should see that the strait-jacket was brought into requisition. When your generosity train dashes recklessly beyond regulation ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the best path to religious belief. Almost alone amongst his class, he was far-sighted enough to perceive, at any rate in the latter years of his life, that the only hope of New Zealand lay in annexation, and that any dream of a Protestant Paraguay was Utopian. Quite naturally, but most unfortunately, most missionaries thought otherwise, and were at the outset of colonization placed in antagonism to the pioneers. Meanwhile they taught the elements of a rough-and-ready civilization, which the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... should be forced prematurely by the efforts of this man Symes. Really I feel a distinct sense of personal injury at his innovations." Van Lennop laughed slightly. "The old way was the best way for a long time to come, it seems to me. That was real democracy—a Utopian condition that had of necessity to go with the town's growth, but certainly not at this stage. In larger communities it is natural enough that those of similar tastes should seek each other, but, in a place ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... corporation, and that is the legisiative delegation from the city. If the refuse matter were taken from that, there would be nothing left. It has been proposed that the Legislature itself should be purified; but this idea is Utopian, PUNCHINELLO fears. If Niagara were squirted through its halls, the water would be dirtied, but the halls would not be cleansed. Alas, poor city! Trampled under the heels of the aristocratic HONG and PENNY BUNN, what is ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... If his Lordship's reading of the old Nelsonian motto is "England expects that every clergyman (Dissenter or Churchman) should do somebody else's duty," then England will have to wait a considerable time for the Utopian ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... nullification has amplified itself into secession, and Northern free-soil principles have burst into this growth of abolition. Men have not calculated the results. Charming pictures are drawn for you of the negro in a state of Utopian bliss, owning his own hoe and eating his own hog; in a paradise, where everything is bought and sold, except his wife, his little ones, and himself. But the enfranchised negro has always thrown away his hoe, has eaten any man's ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... million slaves to a population of sixteen millions. Then, again, the duration of the republics of antiquity, compared with that of monarchies, was very short. Republics are very easy to found, and very difficult to maintain, while with monarchies it is exactly the reverse. If it is Utopian schemes that are wanted, I say this: the only solution of the problem would be a despotism of the wise and the noble, of the true aristocracy and the genuine nobility, brought about by the method of generation—that is, by the marriage of the noblest ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... work, untrammeled by outside influence, is considerable, largely a genial satire on critics and philosophers; his stay in the moon is a kind of Utopian fancy. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... thinking of hanging,' says Captain Macheath. Of all people the most tormenting are those who bid you hope in the midst of despair, who, by never caring about anything but their own sanguine, hair-brained Utopian schemes, have at no time any particular cause for embarrassment and despondency because they have never the least chance of success, and who by including whatever does not hit their idle fancy, kings, priests, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... devoted attachment to liberty, that spirit of moderation and forbearance for which our countrymen were once distinguished, continue to be cherished. If this continues to be the ruling passion of our souls, the weaker feeling of the mistaken enthusiast will be corrected, the Utopian dreams of the scheming politician dissipated, and the complicated intrigues of the demagogue rendered harmless. The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for every injury which our institutions may receive. On the contrary, no care that can be used ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... surprised and disappointed, therefore, at finding that on this subject I was often indulging in an Utopian dream, rather than a well-founded opinion. I have been concerned at finding that these fine estates were too often involved, and mortgaged, or placed in the hands of creditors, and the owners exiled from their paternal ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... encourages and to which it renders man more liable. In the consideration of these cases it must not be forgotten that the sexual relations are much more to man or woman than is generally acknowledged. The days for the establishment of the Utopian republic of Plato are not yet with us. That Platonic love does exist is true, as it has in the past and will in the future. Scipio, refusing to accept the beautiful betrothed bride of an enemy as a present, or ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... disruption of great material interests that now are wedded together. The dream of separate State sovereignty, our great Union split into two or more confederacies, prosperous and peaceable, is Utopian. So far from the secession doctrine carried out leading to peace and prosperity, it can only lead to perpetual war and adversity. The request to be 'let alone,' is simply a request that the nation should consent to see the Constitution and Union overthrown, slavery triumphant, and the great ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... matters also have been precipitated, some crystals of poetry translucent, symmetrical, enduring. The immediate practical outcome was disappointing, and the external history of the agitation is a record of failed experiments, spurious sciences, Utopian philosophies, and sects founded only to dwindle away or be reabsorbed into some form of {439} orthodoxy. In the eyes of the conservative, or the worldly-minded, or of the plain people who could not understand the enigmatic utterances ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... embarrass the Government of the United States in the august and solemn championship of human liberty committed to its charge. And let it be remarked that our expectations of English approval were never Utopian. The great principle involved in the American contest was so far above the level of the ordinary pursuits of men, that, even among ourselves, few have been able to transfuse it into their daily consciousness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... "Utopian but foolish," Sir Timothy declared. "All the same, Mr. Ledsam, let me tell you this. You have a curious attraction for me. When I was asked why I had invited you to The Sanctuary last night, I frankly could ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... walked slowly homeward, musing thoughtfully: "This is a strange world," she soliloquized. "Let philosophers air their utopian theories about its containing the elements of universal happiness. I know that human nature, as it is now constituted, is too selfish and mean to arrive at a state of absolute perfection. Truly, 'men are a little breed.' 'But, in the future, when that which is ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... must be taken at once," insisted Gorham. "I told you, gentlemen, that I had awakened from my Utopian dream. I shall make no more promises until I am absolutely certain that they will be made good ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... reduce the freedom of the individual to a smaller measure? Whatever social tyranny may have existed twenty years ago, when it wrung that fiery protest from the lips of John Stuart Mill, can we imagine a state of society, not totally Utopian, in which the individual man need be less ashamed of his social fetters, in which he could more freely utter all his honest convictions, more boldly propound all his theories, more fearlessly agitate for their speedy ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller

... my man, Cheetham, the Merchant Service boatswain, and could not quite make out how "Alf," as the sailors called him, got so much out of the hands—this little squeaky-voiced man—I think we hit on Utopian conditions for working the ship. There were no wasters, and our seamen were the pick of the British Navy and Mercantile Marine. Most of the Naval men were intelligent petty officers and were as fully alive as the merchantmen ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... households are systematized to the beautiful smoothness of small ones; their phrase of "fare-well" is one of epicurean invitation, not of dismissal; while such are the combined luxuriousness and economy that, says one authority, "the modern London club is a realization of a Utopian coenobium,—a sort of lay convent, rivalling the celebrated Abbey of Theleme, with the agreeable motto of Fais ce que voudras, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Peace lured the Powers to her House at the Hague With promises specious and welcome though vague Of a time when the terrors of war should lie hid And the leopard fall headlong in love with the kid, She drew up a set of Utopian rules For the guidance of all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... practicability of solving the problem, I do not wish to magnify its dimensions. In this and in subsequent chapters I hope to convince those who read them that there is no overstraining in the representation of the facts, and nothing Utopian in the presentation of remedies. I appeal neither to hysterical emotionalists nor headlong enthusiasts; but having tried to approach the examination of this question in a spirit of scientific investigation, I put forth my proposals with the view of securing the support and co-operation ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... sunset. There were at least fifty kinds of perpetual motion, one of which was applicable to the wits of newspaper editors and writers of every description. Professor Espy was here, with a tremendous storm in a gum-elastic bag. I could enumerate many more of these Utopian inventions; but, after all, a more imaginative collection is to be found in the Patent ...
— The Hall of Fantasy (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... colors the imaginations of Socialists have beautifully pictured their utopian state for the benefit of the credulous and oppressed. Unfortunately, however, for the followers of Karl Marx, a little reasoning and common sense show that their visionary state, instead of being a heavenly paradise, would in reality be a descent ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... a strange thing in civilization, and a stranger when we consider what literature does for us, blessing our world or banning it—it is a wonder and a shame that books of whatever tendency are so cast forth upon the waters to sink or swim at hazard. I acknowledge, friend, your present muttering, Utopian! Arcadian! Formosan! to be not ill-founded: the sketch is a hasty one; but though it may have somewhat in common with the vagaries of Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and that king in impudence, George Psalmanazar, still I stand upon this ground, that many ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... mention among other things in this play, that Shakespeare has anticipated nearly all the arguments on the Utopian schemes of ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... Utopian. I much fear it will never be made a blessed reality by either philosophy or religion. We have had both for forty centuries, yet the fool has become ever more offensive and the liar has overrun the land. Yet we imagine that because we no longer live in caves and ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... "The Utopian," because I thought some of the little essays would fall in with all that filled your mind, and perhaps help you to a spirit of hopefulness and confidence which will come to you and abide with you, I ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... that," his son replied carelessly. "I don't remember Uncle Phil much. Jeff's a queer fellow, full of Utopian notions about brotherhood and that sort of thing. But he's practical in a way. He gets things done in spite of ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... AUSTIN wanted to exclude lawyers, along with roving frontiersmen, from his colonies in Texas, and hoped thus to promote a utopian society. The lawyers got in, however. Their wit, the anecdotes of which they were both subject and author, and the political stories they made traditional from the stump, have not been adequately set down. As criminal lawyers they stood as high in society as corporation ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... Mr. Fowler, the Oxford Professor of Logic, which treat of the department of Fallacies. Perhaps Bentham's Book of Fallacies is too political for me to commend it to you here. But if there happens to be any one in Birmingham who is fond of meeting proposed changes by saying that they are Utopian; that they are good in theory, but bad in practice; that they are too good to be realised, and so forth, then I can promise him that he will in that book hear of something very much ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley

... so "magnificent"! Alexander spoke with the eloquence of a possessing passion, and Ian listened and felt himself to be the sympathizing friend. Even the profound, unreasonable, unhumorous idealism of old Steadfast had its quaint, Utopian appeal. He was going to marry the farmer's granddaughter, though he might, undoubtedly, marry better.... Ian listened, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... The Socialists and other utopian critics, who are supposed to drill to the bedrock of questions, have looked upon advertising as essentially a parasite upon the production and distribution of wealth. They tell us that in the good time ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... said Harman, "set the wolves to form protective enactments for the sheep. I fear, my good sir, that such a scheme is much too Utopian for any practically beneficial purpose. In the meantime, if it can be done, let it. No legislation, however, will be able, in my mind, to bind so powerful a class as the landlords of Ireland are, unless a strong and sturdy public opinion is created ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... preparation we had constantly to revise downward our standards. We lived without comforts which formerly we had regarded as absolutely essential. We lived a life so crude and rough that our army experiences in England seemed Utopian by comparison. But we throve splendidly. A government, paternalistic in its solicitude for our welfare, had schooled our bodies to withstand hardships and to endure privations. In England we had been inoculated and vaccinated whether we ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... this is not Utopian: but I will tell you what would have seemed, if we had not seen it, Utopian on the side of evil instead of good; that ever men should have come to value their money so much more than their lives, that if you call upon them to become soldiers, and take ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... unmindful of the fact that the views here expressed, may sound rather Utopian. But in this age of rush and bustle for place, preferment and national gain, by individuals and the nation; and in an age when anarchists, lynchers and murderers set at defiance all law and government; in an age when, in certain sections of the country, the ballot-box ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... the particular methods which Swift suggested for realizing his reformatory scheme, and they were, no doubt, artificial and wooden enough; the tract itself remains an excellent survey of the evils and gross habits of the time. The methods may be Utopian (Swift himself thought they were open to discussion), but the spirit of sincerity and piety is unmistakable. It is worth remembering, however, that several of the proposals, such as those for closing the public-houses at twelve o'clock at night; the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... consolidates the faith of those who adopt it. According to this faith, the socialists do not have to create socialism, they only have to cooeperate in the historical process which will inevitably make socialism grow. In thus recognizing the supremity of the law of history, socialism, utopian up to this time, becomes scientific and, under its new form, it is no longer subject to the influence of personal opinions, no matter how full of genius they may be. But this "scientific socialism," which, on account of the backwardness of political economy, could be only a step ahead, was taken ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... 'Looking Backward,' that distinguish it from the generality of Utopian literature, lie in its definite scheme of industrial organization on a national basis, and the equal share allotted to all persons in the products of industry, or the public income, on the same ground that men share ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... even before the fashionable subscribers, who may be presumed to have tolerated it, since they did not manifest any disapproval of its use. Since the first edition of this book was published, the Utopian idea, as it then seemed, of a national opera for London has advanced considerably towards realisation, and it is certain that when it is set on foot, the English ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... which have been put forth to account for the origin of Masonry in general, and of the organization of the Grand Lodge in particular. They are as follows: First, that it was all due to an imaginary Temple of Solomon described by Lord Bacon in a Utopian romance called the New Atlantis; and this despite the fact that the temple in the Bacon story was not a house at all, but the name of an ideal state. Second, that the object of Freemasonry and the origin of the Third Degree ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... state of society Arthur's father had been thrown at the age of twenty-five—a young married parson, full of faith, hope, and love. He had battled with it like a man, and had lots of fine Utopian ideas about the perfectibility of mankind, glorious humanity, and such-like, knocked out of his head, and a real, wholesome Christian love for the poor, struggling, sinning men, of whom he felt himself one, and with and for whom he spent fortune, and strength, and life, driven into his ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... of this work the author shows not only the reactionary character of anarchism, but he exposes its class bias and its empty philosophic idealism and utopian program. He shows anarchism to be just the opposite of scientific socialism or communism. It aims at a society dominated by individualism, which is simply a capitalist ideal. Such ideals as "liberty," "equality," "fraternity," first sprang from ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... logical conclusion the industrial system of to-day. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But even on this supposition the balanced civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... commerce, in the government diplomatic service, in the professions of law and medicine, in the ranks of pure science. We are bordering on the fantastical, are we not? Dreaming, you will probably say, of the Utopian in crime organisation. Quite so, Mr. Dale. I only ask you to consider the POSSIBILITIES if what I say is true. Now let us proceed. I am going to take you into three rooms—the three whose doors you see ahead of you. You will notice ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... and it is, therefore, a matter of importance that they should think aright. It is of importance, that they should be guarded against fallacious Utopian promises. Henceforth, there is no security for the stability of the world but in the contentment of minds. There is no rest for mankind, unless men will understand the conditions of their ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... was sent out of the ark. If there was rest for the soles of their feet, it was all that could be said. There was no promise of a place to sit down; and as for lying down and getting their natural rest, the idea was Utopian. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... in this country as in France, may be regarded as an offset of the French Revolution. It is true that, in all times, the striking disparity between the conditions of men has given rise to Utopian speculations—to schemes of some new order of society, where the comforts of life should be enjoyed in a more equalized manner than seems possible under the old system of individual efforts and individual ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... thirteenth centuries, says Meray in a charming book on life in the days of the Courts of Love, we find women "with infinite skill and an adorable refinement seizing the moral direction of French society." They did so, he remarks, in a spirit so Utopian, so ideally poetic, that historians have hesitated to take them seriously. The laws of the Courts of Love[77] may sometimes seem to us immoral and licentious, but in reality they served to restrain the worst immoralities ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... philanthropic thinkers enumerated here but the men derisively described by Karl Marx as the "Utopian Socialists" of the nineteenth century? Utopian Socialism is thus simply the open and visible expression of Grand Orient Freemasonry. Moreover, these Utopian Socialists were almost without exception Freemasons or ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... of practice and of facts, uncontrolled by principles and wise in ancestral experience, replied: "We must not listen to this dreamer, this theorist, this innovator, this Utopian, this political economist, this friend to N*w Y*rk. We would be entirely ruined if the embarrassments of the road were not carefully weighed and exactly equalized between N*w Y*rk and M*ntr**l. There would be more difficulty in going than in ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... it difficult to carry out the scheme described in the last chapter. They indeed who know anything of such matters will be inclined to call it Utopian, and to say that one so wise in worldly matters as our schoolmaster should not have attempted to combine so many things. He wanted a gentleman, a schoolmaster, a curate, a matron, and a lady,—we may say all in one. Curates and ushers are generally unmarried. ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope

... taught it were, consequently, nearly all Greeks. Cicero had made it fashionable among many of his countrymen; and although the Latin mind, always practical to the verge of utilitarianism, was not congenial to utopian speculations, still, as it was the fashion, all intellectual men felt the need of becoming sufficiently acquainted with it to be able to speak of it and even to embrace some particular school. Those patricians, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... moves it to commit felony. It loves to protect and not to oppress those who are weaker than itself. It has at heart the work of propagating throughout the world certain principles of social life which certainly are utopian, but are yet beautiful to have before the eyes and in the heart, in order to live not only for the present, but ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... could succeed in taming the selfishness of self. But he told himself now that the struggle to do so had hitherto been vain. There had been but the one thing which had ever been to him supremely desirable. He had gone through the years of his early life forming some Utopian ideas,—dreaming of some perfection in politics, in philanthropy, in social reform, and the like,—something by devoting himself to which he could make his life a joy to himself. Then this girl had come across ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... attachment to the ancient order of things, had viewed with satisfaction the substitution of the Consular for the Directorial government, and entertained no personal dislike to the First Consul. Among the Chateaux, more than anywhere else, it had always been the custom to cherish Utopian ideas respecting the management of public affairs, and to criticise the acts of the Government. It is well known that at this time there was not in all France a single old mansion surmounted by its two weathercocks ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... literally taken from Essay I. 30, 'On Cannibals.' We shall later on show Shakspere's reason for giving us this fanciful description of such an Utopian commonwealth. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... times," returned Erasmus. "Methinks yonder phantom, be he skeleton or angel, will have snatched both of us away ere we behold the full issue either of thy preachings, or my Greek Testament, or of our More's Utopian images. Dost thou not feel as though we were like children who have set some mighty engine in motion, like the great water-wheels in my native home, which, whirled by the flowing streams of time and opinion, may break ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Sunday amusement," interrupted Lady Angleby sarcastically. "You are too Utopian, Sir Edward. Your colony will be a dismal failure and disappointment if you conduct it on ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... the scarlet-fever story was probably an extemporaneous work of fiction, got up to gratify the Hibernian anger at Ann, and that it wasn't in the least worth while to believe one thing more than another from the fact that any of the tribe said it. But she refuses to be comforted, and is so Utopian as to lie there, crying,—'Oh, if I only could get one that I could trust,—one that really would speak the truth to me,—one that I might know really went where she said she went, and really did as she said she did!' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... refused to acknowledge a Supreme Providence, and substituted some airy abstraction of "Universal Love" in its place. An aristocrat by birth and, as I understand, also in appearance and manners, he was yet a leveller in politics, and to such an Utopian extent as to be, seriously, the advocate of a community of property. With a delicacy and even romance of sentiment, which lends such grace to some of his lesser poems, he could notwithstanding contemplate a change in the relations of the sexes, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... in the Society were in the main on things abstract or Utopian. Social Reconstruction was a constant theme, Hubert Bland outlined "Revolutionary Prospects" in January, 1885, and Bernard Shaw in February combated "The ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... connection, and the multitude would all be on the same side. The favorite had professed to hold in abhorrence those means by which preceding ministers had kept the House of Commons in good humor. He now began to think that he had been too scrupulous. His Utopian visions were at an end. It was necessary, not only to bribe, but to bribe more shamelessly and flagitiously than his predecessors, in order to make up for lost time. A majority must be secured, no matter ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... had, for the present, to content myself with the moral satisfaction of my successes, of which my unmistakable popularity with the Dresden public, and the respect and attention paid to me, formed part. But even in this respect my Utopian dreams were destined to be disturbed. I think that my appearance at Dresden marked the beginning of a new era in journalism and criticism, which found food for its hitherto but slightly developed vitality in its vexation at my success. The two ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... fashioning forms of co-operative living. Into whatever millennial state Ruskin sought to usher his little band of English followers and disciples, one must speak appreciatively of his motives in projecting the scheme, and of the money and labor he personally lavished upon the Utopian project. Reverently also must one speak of the catholic creed to which its members were asked to subscribe: namely, to trust in God, recognize the nobleness of human nature, labor faithfully with one's might, be loyal to one's common country, its laws, and its monarch's ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... Bacon are seldom read, and may be passed over lightly. We mention only, as indicative of his wide range, his History of Henry VII, his Utopian romance The New Atlantis, his Advancement of Learning and his Novum Organum. The last two works, one in English, the other in Latin, were parts of the Instauratio Magna, or The Great Institution of True Philosophy, a colossal work which Bacon did not finish, which ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... O hours Utopian which we may anticipate! Thick London fog how easy 'tis to dissipate, And make the most pea-soupy day as clear As ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... defects, it is an undeniable historical fact that these are the principles which have been wrought out and applied in the administration of the British Empire during the nineteenth century. They are not vague and Utopian dreams; they are a matter of daily practice. If they can be applied by one of the world-states, and that the greatest, why should they not be applied by the rest? But if these principles became universal, is it not apparent that all danger of a catastrophic war ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... necessarily be downright unscrupulous, but if he wishes to profit he must not be overburdened with niceties in the point of honour. That is where Richard Melvyn fell through. He was crippled with too many Utopian ideas of honesty, and was too soft ever to come off anything but second-best in a deal. He might as well have attempted to make his fortune by scraping a fiddle up and down Auburn Street, Goulburn. His dealing career was ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... the work in hand without wasting time or energy on unnecessary aches and pains; people whose bodies are kept up to the top notch of vitality by well-digested food, well-slept sleep, well-forgotten fatigue, and well-used reserve energy. That such a state of affairs is no Utopian dream, but is merely a matter of knowing how, will appear more clearly ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... III. with his cackling was certainly not efficacious in restraining such a flight. But it is gratifying to see how this new people, when they had it in their power to change all their laws, to throw themselves upon any Utopian theory that the folly of a wild philanthropy could devise, to discard as abominable every vestige of English rule and English power,—it is gratifying to see that, when they could have done all this, they did not do ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... Fairy land, and Fairies of Spenser, have no connection with popular superstition, being only words used to denote an Utopian scene of action, and imaginary or allegorical characters; and the title of the "Fairy Queen" being probably suggested by the elfin mistress of Chaucer's Sir Thopas. The stealing of the Red Cross Knight, while a child, is the only incident in the poem which approaches ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... follows from the foregoing discussion, is that the method of Nature is fundamental to the method of Logic. Physics should precede metaphysics, but not exclude it; both are essential to every true science, and physics, which stops with physics, leads man by dazzling promises into some Utopian desert only to leave him there to die of hunger. And it is no less true that metaphysics, without this basis in experimental science, is illusory and untrustworthy, wherever the original data ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter

... what he was doing in the mills, and saw how his whole scheme hung together, harmonizing the work and leisure of the operatives, instead of treating them as half machine, half man, and neglecting the man for the machine. Nor was she content with Utopian generalities: she wanted to know the how and why of each case, to hear what conclusions he drew from his results, to what solutions his ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... that Shelley was in no sense an inflammatory demagogue; however visionary may have been the hopes he indulged, he based those hopes upon the still more Utopian foundation of a sudden ethical reform, and preached a revolution without bloodshed. We find in them, moreover, the germs of "The Revolt of Islam", where the hero plays the part successfully in fiction, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... earlier in the nineteenth century, Robert Owen had preached a Socialist crusade with strenuous persuasion—but, ignoring politics, he outlived the temporary success of his cause. The utopian Socialism of Owen flourished and died, as Chartism, under different ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... passed, flattered, almost intoxicated with the attention of various kinds paid her by every one, at High Down, and when her wonted dread of Marian's disapproving eye would return, hardening herself against it with the thought that Marian could not make every one as Utopian as her own Edmund and Fern Torr, that she was proud and determined in prejudice, and after all what right had she to interfere? Of Walter, Caroline did not dare ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... participant's paying an annual tax equal to the wages of three days' work, and eligibility as an electeur, on the possession of an income equal in value to the wages paid for two hundred days' day-labor. Owen endeavored to base the value of the paper money in circulation in his Utopian commonwealth, not on any metal of a certain weight or stamp, but on hours of labor as the unit. (Reybaud, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... decision and independence in her manner which he had learned to respect. He took the letters, and in silence read them with her. They were old college letters, so filled with boyish dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and utopian theories, that I fear neither of these young people even recognized their parents in the dead ashes of the past. They were both grave, until Alice uttered a little hysterical cry, and dropped her face in her hands. Joe was instantly ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... despotism. In the North, Puritanism molded it, and went so far as to leave out the natural conservative element of all democracies—domestic slavery. As a result, we have presented now social, religious, and domestic anarchy. From Millerism, and Spiritualism, every Utopian idea has numerous advocates. The manufacturer is an aristocrat, while the working-man is a serf. The latter class, constantly goaded by poverty, seek a change—they care not what it may be. Democracy unrestrained by domestic slavery, multiplies the laboring classes indefinitely, but it debases ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the sons it seems made trouble, also, in an attempt to usurp his father's place and take charge of affairs, as "next friend." One generation is about the limit of a Utopian Community. When those who have organized the community weaken and one by one pass away, and the young assume authority, the old ideas of austerity are forgotten and dissipation and disintegration enter. So do we move ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... territory nearly equal in area to the whole of Europe, carried on by a republican government elected by universal suffrage, and guaranteeing to every tiniest village its full meed of local independence,—the very idea of all this would have been scouted as a thoroughly impracticable Utopian dream. And such scepticism would have been quite justifiable, for European history did not seem to afford any precedents upon which such a forecast of the future could be logically based. Between the ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... critics, M. Caro, a member of the Academy, who deals somewhat austerely with her religiose enthusiasms and with her Utopian projects for social reformation, remarks gravely and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... roast beef, pulpit cushions, bright eyes, and small black sarsnet shoes. Suddenly the chapel bell dissolves the fleeting fabric of the vision; and, behold! the white veil is a poet's imagination, the church spire is still at a miserable distance, the vicarage is a Utopian nonentity, and the fat incumbent, in a state of the ruddiest health, is the only reality of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various

... beginning by men whose names are familiar to the Canadians. These were some of the pioneers of improvement, and some of them yet living have to combat the vulgar or interested reproach of being possessed with ideas of utopian schemes. But it is time to turn again to the baser things of Lower Canada. Lord Dalhousie, who had paid a visit to Nova Scotia, immediately after the prorogation of the parliament of Lower Canada, returned to Quebec in August. In October he established ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... and intimacy with strange people and strange cults. In the parlor of her home she had listened to frank, fantastic discussions; to lawless theories. These discussions, beginning anywhere, ended always with the reform of the marriage relation. Anarchist, socialist, nihilist, atheist, Utopian, altruist—all tinkered with the family group, as if they recognized that the civilization they were at war with rested upon ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... co-operation than to his socialism, in which he saw salvation, and which they regarded as pedantic and hybrid. Bismarck's system had no justification and derogated all laws of ethics and justice. With his Utopian schemes the professors in their lecture-rooms endeavored to excite the Socialists, who, if they had listened and demanded their realization would have been exposed to be shot down in the streets by the soldiery, without anyone being able even to raise a protest ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... Conciergerie. He had brought with him a head crammed with schemes for the political regeneration of the whole world, and a trunkful of French fashions, neither of which, as I reckoned, were likely to take much with us. He made me laugh inwardly twenty times a-day by his Utopian theories and fancies. Truth to tell, in matters of politics or of sound common sense, these Frenchmen are for the most part mere children, and reach their dying day without ever becoming men. Take them by their weak points, their unlimited vanity or their love of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... sister, the Countess of Pembroke, a pastoral romance, entitled Arcadia (published in 1590). Unlike Lyly, Sidney did not aim at precision, emphatic contrast, and balance. For its effectiveness, the Arcadia relies on poetic language and conceptions. The characters in the romance live and love in a Utopian Arcadia, where "the morning did strow Roses and Violets in the heavenly floor against the coming of the Sun," and where the shepherd boy pipes "as though ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... laments his conduct. He kills coldly, with the minuteness and exactitude with which he does everything. The Russian is a barbarian who strikes and regrets; German civilization shoots without hesitation. Our Slav Czar, in a humanitarian dream, favored the Utopian idea of universal peace, organizing the Conference of The Hague. The Kaiser of culture, meanwhile, has been working years and years in the erection and establishment of a destructive organ of an immensity ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... product of the exceptional but of the general—of the normality of their place, and time, and race. The ferocity and imbecility of an autocratic rule rejecting all legality and in fact basing itself upon complete moral anarchism provokes the no less imbecile and atrocious answer of a purely Utopian revolutionism encompassing destruction by the first means to hand, in the strange conviction that a fundamental change of hearts must follow the downfall of any given human institutions. These people are unable to see that all they can effect is merely ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... recklessness. He was educated up to a certain point: he had a good knowledge of many things, science, sociology, and his various trades: he had a very poor knowledge of many others: and he was just as cocksure with both: he had Utopian notions, just ideas, ignorance in many directions, a practical mind, many prejudices, experience, and suspicion and hatred of burgess society. That did not prevent his welcoming Christophe. His pride was tickled by being sought out by a well-known artist. He was of the race of leaders, and, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... Latin union. Wonderful is his optimism. Some of the Felibres about him are somewhat discouraged, many of them have never set their aspirations as high as he has done, and some look upon his dreams as Utopian. Whatever be the future of the movement he has founded, Mistral's life in its simple oneness, and in its astonishing success, is indeed most remarkable. Provence, the land that first gave the world a literature after the decay of the classic tongues, ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... heather and the "bright consummate flowers." And these human bees had their passions, too! their massacres; their tragedies; their "Rival Queens"; their combats; their sentinels; their dreams of that Utopian form of government realized in the communistic society ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... militia law, and an unpaid cash account bulky enough to take Cuba! Country publishers suffer in this way intensely. About one half of the "subscribers" to the Clarion of Freedom, or the Universal Democrat, or the Whig Shot Tower, seem to labor under the Utopian notion that printers were made to mourn over unpaid subscription lists; or that they "got up" papers for their own peculiar amusement, and carried them or sent them to the doors of the public for mere pastime! ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... doctor musingly. "The idea is Utopian, but I have often thought how pleasant life would be were there no ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... Utopian parity is a kind of government, to be wished for, [623]rather than effected, Respub. Christianopolitana, Campanella's city of the Sun, and that new Atlantis, witty fictions, but mere chimeras; and Plato's ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... present, I am only going to ask you to read a little five cent pamphlet, by Gaylord Wilshire, called The Significance of the Trust, and a little book by Frederick Engels, called Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Later on, when I have had a chance to explain Socialism in a general way, and must then leave you to your own resources, I intend to make for you a list of books, which I hope you will be ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... of his day. If it should be objected to by some of the most highly developed Negro thought of the present day, the increasing tendency towards retaliation should be attributed partly to the American Negro's metamorphosis since the colossal struggle for that Utopian ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... the day and had taken a keen interest in this momentous question, this dream of a regenerated mankind. He had read Karl Marx and other socialistic writers, and while his essentially practical mind could hardly approve all their programme for reorganizing the State, some of which seemed to him utopian, extravagant and even undesirable, he realised that the socialistic movement was growing rapidly all over the world and the day was not far distant when in America, as to-day in Germany and France, it would be a formidable factor to ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... is too familiar with the realities of life not to be aware that the search for such an ideal is a Utopian dream. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... briefly set forth in the preceding pages is not what Kant calls a "Hirngespinnst," a cobweb [235] spun in the brain of a Utopian philosopher. More or less of it has taken bodily shape in many parts of the country, and there are towns of no great size or wealth in the manufacturing districts (Keighley, for example) in which almost the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... patent-office, schemers and speculators whose plans end in ruin, boon companions, brilliant talkers, sparkling orators, elegant and ornate poets who sing blithely for their own day and generation, preachers and statesmen who are ever led away by Utopian and millennial dreams; in short, men who may shine while they live, but are seldom remembered ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler



Words linked to "Utopian" :   utopia, Laputan, windy, reformer, visionary, perfect, social reformer, reformist, meliorist, impractical, dystopian, crusader, airy



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