Defined broadly, a visionary, is one who can envision the future. For some groups this can involve the supernatural
The visionary state is achieved via meditation, drugs, lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century artist/visionary and Catholic saint. Other visionaries in religion are St Bernadette and Joseph Smith (said to have had a vision of and communed with the Blessed Virgin, and the Angel Moroni respectively).
Read more about Visionary: Extended Meanings, In Art
Famous quotes containing the word visionary:
“A universal and perpetual peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“And so it was I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love,”
—Hart Crane (1899–1932)
“Public morning diversions were the last dissipating habit she obtained; but when that was accomplished, her time was squandered away, the power of reflection was lost, [and] her ideas were all centered in dress, drums, routs, operas, masquerades, and every kind of public diversion. Visionary schemes of pleasure were continually present to her imagination, and her brain was whirled about by such a dizziness that she might properly be said to labor under the distemper called the vertigo.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)