Quote Lady's Quotes by Subject, Ideals

Ideals

Acts of courage shape human history. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.--Robert F. Kennedy
All genuine ideals have one thing in common: they express the desire for something which is not yet accomplished but which is desirable for the purpose of the growth and happiness of the individual.--Eric Fromm (Escape from Freedom)
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.--Hermann Hesse
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.--Arnold Toynbee
Being an idealist is not being a simpleton; without idealists there would be no optimism and without optimism there would be no courage to achieve advances that so-called realists would have you believe could never come to fruition.--Alisa Steinberg
Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.--Samuel Smiles
Don't part company with your ideals. They are anchors in a storm.--Arnold Glasgow
Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.--Robert F. Kennedy
Every dogma has its day, but ideals are eternal.--Israel Zangwill (Address, Nov. 13, 1892)
Every man, every woman carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.--Edward Abbey
First, when everybody tells you that you are being idealistic or impractical, consider the possibility that everybody could be wrong about what is right for you. Look inside yourself the way nobody else can. Will the pursuit of your dream hurt anybody? Do you stand at least a fair chance of success? If you fail, will you be seriously damaged or merely embarrassed? If you succeed, will it change your life for the better? When you can persuade yourself that your dream is worthwhile and achievable--then you say thank you to the doubters and take the plunge … How much better to know that we have dared to live our dreams than to live our lives in a lethargy of regret.--Gilbert E. Kaplan
Heads are wisest when they are cool and hearts are strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.--Ralph Bunche (in Forbes Magazine, 23 Jan 1989)
The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.--Victor HugoThe human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.--Victor Hugo
I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. …The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.--Albert Einstein ("What I Believe" Forum and Century)
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.--Anne Frank
The ideal life is to do everything a little and one thing a lot.--Martha Lupton
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.--John Galsworthy
Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.--Aldous Huxley (New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 28, 1963)
Idealism springs from deep feelings, but feelings are nothing without the formulated idea that keeps them whole.--Jacques Barzun (The House of Intellect)
Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.--Emma Goldman
Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.--Walter Lippmann (A Preface to Morality)
Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you reach your destiny.--Carl Schurz
Ideals are like tuning forks: sound them often to bring your life up to standard pitch.--S. D. Gordon
If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.--Susan B. Anthony ("Letter," 1900, to Dr. Sara R. Dolley)
The image is made to order, tailored to us. An ideal, on the hand, has a claim on us. It does not serve us, we serve it. If we have trouble striding toward it, we assume the matter is with us, and not the ideal.--Daniel J. Boorstin (The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America)
It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit, divorced from it, they remain barren.--Bertrand Russell (Mysticism and Logic)
It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that hold the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others.--Orsen Swett Marden
It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.--Bertrand Russell ("The Liberation of Women" Marriage and Morals)
Man can never come up to his ideal standard. It is the nature of the immortal spirit to raise that standard higher and higher as it goes from strength to strength, still upward and onward. The wisest and greatest men are ever the most modest.--Margaret Fuller
The measure of a society is not only what it does but the quality of its aspirations.--Wade Davis
No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her won way is without enemies.--Daisy Bates
No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.--Alfred North Whitehead
No vision and you perish;
No Ideal, and you're lost;
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.--Harriet Du Autermont
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.--Douglas MacArthur
One day, a new ideal will arise, and there will be an end to all wars. I die convinced of this. It will need much hard work, but it will be achieved… The important thing, until that happens, is to hold one's banner high and to struggle… Without struggle there is no life.--Kaethe Kollwitz (in Kaethe Kollwitz by Nagel)
An optimist is a person who sees only the lights in the picture, whereas a pessimist sees only the shadows. An idealist, however, is one who sees the light and the shadows, but in addition sees something else: the possibility of changing the picture, of making the lights prevail over the shadows.--Felix Adler
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend.--Ann Lamont (Bird by Bird)
A Realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned.--Warren W. Wiersbe (in Leadership)
Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold, lost as it is in the depths, small, isolated, a pin-point, brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it; nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.--Victor Hugo
Success is the satisfaction of feeling that one is realizing one's ideal.--Anna Pavlova
To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle.--Sir William Osler
To live and let live, without clamour for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine live; to write truth first on the table of one's own heart--this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.--Mary Baker Eddy
We come to think of an idealist as one who seeks to realize what is not in fact realizable. But, it is necessary to insist, to have ideals is not the same as to have impracticable ideals, however often it may be the case that our ideals are impracticable.--L. Susan Stebbing (Ideals and Illusions)
What is undeniable is that when comforts and convenience sap our energies and idealism, inactivity secretes sloth in to our minds like a poison in the blood.--Os Guinness (The Call)
When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.--Judith Martin (Miss Manner's Guide to Rearing Perfect Children)
When one paints an ideal, one does not need to limit one's imagination.--Ellen Key
When the world seems large and complex, we need to remember that great world ideals all begin in some home neighborhood.--Konrad Adenauer
Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.--Herbert Hoover
The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.--Sydney J. Harris
You always need to make ideals clear to yourself. You always have to be aware of them, even if there is no direct path to their realization. Were there no ideals, there would be no hope whatsoever. Then everything would be hopelessness, darkness--a blind alley.--Dr. Andrei Sakharov
You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.--Norman Douglas (South Wind)
You cannot seek for the ideal outside the realm of reality.--Leon Blum (New Conversation)