Idealism refers to the property of a person of having high ideals that are usually unrealizable or at odds with practical life. It commonly describes 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 and an approach to philosophical enquiry, which asserts that direct and immediate knowledge can only be had of ideas or mental pictures, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Taken together, these meanings present Idealism as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language. Idealism therefore works well as a quotation category because it can hold direct statements about the subject, figurative uses that borrow its meaning, and broader reflections that stay anchored to the same central idea. Idealism is not limited to a single rigid definition in ordinary language, and that wider range is part of what makes the category useful for grouping related material without losing the term's main sense.
