Fortunately or unfortunately I'm mostly a realist--but let me contribute some quotations from the other side.
<em>The republic is a dream.</em>
<em>Nothing happens unless first a dream.</em>
--Carl Sandburg, "Washington Monument by Night"
<em>You've got to have a dream;</em>
<em>If you don't have a dream,</em>
<em>How're you gonna have a dream come true?</em>
--Oscar Hammerstein, lyrics to the song "Happy Talk"
<em>We are the music makers,</em>
<em> And we are the dreamers of dreams,</em>
<em>Wandering by lone sea-breakers,</em>
<em> And sitting by desolate streams; —</em>
<em>World-losers and world-forsakers,</em>
<em> On whom the pale moon gleams:</em>
<em>Yet we are the movers and shakers</em>
<em> Of the world for ever, it seems.</em>
--Arthur O'Shaughnessy, "Ode"