“Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”

1960s-1980s, "The Firm, the Market, and the Law" (1988)

The Evolution of Physics (1938) (co-written with Leopold Infeld) <!-- later published by Simon & Schuster (1967) -->
1930s
Context: Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.

"Partial Magic in the Quixote", Labyrinths (1964)

L'art n'est pas une étude de la réalité positive; c'est une recherche de la vérité idéale.
La Mare au Diable, ch. 1 (1851); Frank Hunter Potter (trans.) The Haunted Pool (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1895) p. 15

Source: Lady Windermere's Fan

As quoted in "True Frances Farmer story remains elusive" by Rita Rose in The Indianapolis Star (23 January 1983)

&quot;The Will to Believe&quot; p. 14 http://books.google.com/books?id=Moqh7ktHaJEC&amp;pg=PA14 <br class="br">1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)