idealize

Historian Quinn Slobodian joins Felix Salmon to discuss the tech billionaires who idealize a world without democracy.

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2025

I know “quiet” is loaded — a synonym for normalcy, or what we idealize as normal.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2023

“I am going to speak out against those who praise fascist murderers and idealize extremists. I am going to speak out against Holocaust deniers. I’m going to call those out who won’t do it.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 12, 2023

Penjing, as it developed over the centuries, didn’t idealize nature but rather portrayed — or, as some bonsai scholars suggest, exaggerated — its strange, expansive beauty.

From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2021

Not much to idealize when you know your aunt is crying herself to sleep next door and nothing can be done.

From "Where Things Come Back" by John Corey Whaley

Abrams’ Bad Robot-produced introductory short film, which admittedly idealizes NASA’s complicated space shuttle program and includes footage of Endeavour’s final launch into space.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026

Called "splitting," Behr defined this as "the person devalues and idealizes you or others."

From Salon ● Jan. 26, 2023

Like her, he idealizes love, remembering Bronco Henry as part of a bygone generation of “real men” and attributing all his ranching success to his deceased lover.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 25, 2021

Though loneliness can be devastating, the contention that our society is suffering from an epidemic of loneliness not only idealizes relationships of the past but also oversimplifies what it would actually take to combat it.

From Slate ● Feb. 22, 2018

Just as he idealizes Caroline, he paints the Loyers as the perfect mother and daughter.

From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman

Others have argued that the 364-day system was never intended for everyday use and functioned only as an idealized religious framework.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026

We would like to leave no moment uncaptured, would like to at least try to become pearly, hairless, omniscient idealized beings, even if this desire lurks somewhere beneath what we’d consciously admit.

From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2026

Worried about its future and often nostalgic for an idealized past, it's fair to say that much of America saw itself in Dolly Parton.

From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026

“Everyone wants you to be an idealized version of … not even yourself, but of what they want you to be,” she says.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026

Anthropologists formerly idealized band and tribal societies as gentle and nonviolent, because visiting anthropologists observed no murder in a band of 25 people in the course of a three-year study.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

This verdict is in keeping with the tenor of the last 50 years of classical scholarship, which has moved past—perhaps too far past—any idealizing visions of Pericles and Athens.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

She maintains a nuanced sense of humanity’s transgressions and innocence, without demonizing or idealizing either side.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025

Yes — but I don’t think I’m idealizing the past by suggesting that there used to be more restraint, more opprobrium associated with selling out too obviously.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 21, 2022

Narcissists will cycle through idealizing their victims and denigrating them in order to condition people to internalize their will and become extensions of themselves.

From Salon ● Mar. 6, 2021

Not a lot, but enough to keep a dreamer from idealizing the object of his long fascination.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor