Quotes About Ideals

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.

People link the 80s to that very liberal theme, growing up in a very liberal world, having ideals or not having ideals. The 80s were an confusing era.

The American Dream and the American Way are terms which refer to the dreams and ideals of generations of Americans. There is much debate over exactly which dreams and ideals these are, and the term is often used ironically.

There is one great truth in western politics that I have been able to see, and that is this: The more left wing your political ideals are, the more naive a person you are likely to be. The more right wing your political ideals are, the more evil a person you are likely to be. Choosing a political standpoint is largely a matter of deciding which failure as a human you are more comfortable with.

In my public statements I have earnestly urged that there rested upon government many responsibilities which affect the moral and spiritual welfare of our people. The participation of women in elections has produced a keener realization of the importance of these questions and has contributed to higher national ideals. Moreover, it is through them that our national ideals are ingrained in our children.

Men have gone on to build up vast intellectual schemes, philosophies, and theologies, to prove that ideals are not real as ideals but as antecedently existing actualities. They have failed to see that in converting moral realities into matters of intellectual assent they have evinced lack of moral faith.

The fate of an epoch that has eaten of the tree of knowledge is that it must...recognize that general views of life and the universe can never be the products of increasing empirical knowledge, and that the highest ideals, which move us most forcefully, are always formed only in the struggle with other ideals which are just as sacred to others as ours are to us.

In homes where high ideals and gospel values are maintained, it is parents, not teachers, who lay the foundation of character and faith in the hearts of their children.

Maximum growth and high ideals are not incompatible. They’re inseparable.

Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense.

It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the party was trying to achieve.

Although I never publicly defended promiscuity, I never publicly attacked it. I attempted to avoid the subject, in part because I felt, and often still feel, unable to live up to the ideals I really hold.

"Sense of justice is o­ne of the most wonderful ideals of Islam, because as I read in the Qur'an I find those dynamic principles of life, not mystic but practical ethics for the daily conduct of life suited to the whole world."

The Rights Revolutions too have given us ideals that educated people today take for granted but that are virtually unprecedented in human history, such as that people of all races and creeds have equal rights, that women should be free from all forms of coercion, that children should never, ever be spanked, that students should be protected from bullying, and that there’s nothing wrong with being gay. I don’t find it at all implausible that these are gifts, in part, of a refined and widening application of reason.

I learned about what I love. Imagination, deep friendship, animals, family, the natural world, ideas and ideals ... and silliness.

It would be especially tragic if the people who most cherish ideals of peace, who are most anxious for political cooperation on a wider than national scale, made the mistake of underestimating the pace of economic change in our modern world.

Let the will embrace the highest ideals freely and with infinite strength, but let action first take hold of what lies closest.

Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.

If we in Asia want to speak credibly for Asian values, we must be prepared to also champion those ideals which are universal and belong to humanity as a whole...It is altogether shameful, if ingenious, to cite 'Asian values' as an excuse for autocratic practices and the denial of basic rights and civil liberties.

The reason you go to university is to be taught, is to learn how to think more clearly, to call into question the ideas that you came with and think about whether or not they are the ideas you will always want to hold. A university education at its best is a time of confusion and questioning, a time to learn how to think clearly about the values and principles that guide one's life. Of course, it's also a time to acquire the skills needed for jobs in the "real world," but the part about becoming an adult with ideals and integrity is also important.

Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.

The measure discriminates definitely against products which make up what has been universally considered a program of safe farming. The bill upholds as ideals of American farming the men who grow cotton, corn, rice, swine, tobacco, or wheat and nothing else. These are to be given special favors at the expense of the farmer who has toiled for years to build up a constructive farming enterprise to include a variety of crops and livestock.

American ideals are superior to countries all across the world.

It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in search for knowledge.

Democracy isn't solely about polite conversations in parliaments. It needs to be continually refreshed with raw passions, anger and ideals.

The Union has become not merely a physical union of states, but rather a spiritual union in common ideals of our people. Within it is room for every variety of opinion, every possible experiment in social progress. Out of such variety comes growth, but only if we preserve and maintain our spiritual solidarity.

He who does not believe has no soul. He is empty. He has no ideals. He has nothing to live for. He has no sunshine, no light. No joy in life. He is a poor, poor man.

If you wish to enrich days, plant flowers; If you wish to enrich years, plant trees; If you wish to enrich Eternity, plant ideals in the lives of others.

Mutual commitment to ideals - yes; the stifling of all dissenting notions - no.

In our ideals we unwittingly reveal our vices.

The egoist is fooled by no ideals: he discards them or uses them, as may suit his own interest.

In science the new is an advance; but in morals, as contradicting our inner ideals and historic idols, it is ever a retrogression.

When young men or women are beginning life, the most important period, it is often said, is that in which their habits are formed. That is a very important period. But the period in which the ideals of the young are formed and adopted is more important still. For the ideal with which you go forward to measure things determines the nature, so far as you are concerned, of everything you meet.

A world community can exist only with world communication, which means something more than extensive short-wave facilities scattered; about the globe. It means common understanding, a common tradition, common ideas, and common ideals.

America's veterans embody the ideals upon which America was founded more than 229 years ago.

You believe that flag burning shows disrespect towards those who have fought to preserve our freedoms. Punishing protestors shows an even more profound disrespect for the ideals that these people died for. An intact flag is worthless if it no longer stands for freedom. A flag burned to ashes challenges us to remember just exactly what freedom is.

Ideals are not something I can control. It's not logic that convinces me of something, it's what my heart says. My heart has a way of involving me in things, which can only be good for the music.

We need to be skeptical of utopianists who offer unreliable totalistic visions of other worlds and strive to take us there. We need some ideals, but we also need to protect ourselves from the miscalculations and misadventures of visionaries.

A man who has been shot at is a new realist, and what do you say to a realist when the war is a war of ideals?

As a public person, I've always tried to reflect what is embodied in our defining ideals as a nation about equality and fairness and justice and so forth.

Out of the current confusion of ideals and confounding of career hopes, a calm recognition may yet emerge that productive labor is the foundation of all prosperity.

You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.

The great crime which the moneyed classes and promoters of industry committed in the palmy Victorian days was the condemning of the workers to ugliness, ugliness, ugliness: meanness and formless and ugly surroundings, ugly ideals, ugly religion, ugly hope, ugly love, ugly clothes, ugly furniture, ugly houses, ugly relationship between workers and employers. The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.

Robert Kennedy was such an inspiring figure. His interest in politics seemed to come not from a desire for power, but from a need to help our society live up to its ideals.

Find out for yourself what are the possesions and ideals that you do not desire. By knowing what you do not want, by elimination, you will unburden the mind, and only then will it understand the essential which is ever there.

But we have a war of ideals and ideas, and that is to sell democracy.

The danger to America is not in the direction of the failure to maintain its economic position, but in the direction of the failure to maintain its ideals.

We are not asked to subscribe to any utopia or to believe in a perfect world just around the corner. We are asked to be patient with necessarily slow and groping advance on the road forward, and to be ready for each step ahead as it become practicable. We are asked to equip ourselves with courage, hope, readiness for hard work, and to cherish large and generous ideals.