Ideals Quotes & Sayings

A hero worn out by his struggle, one who had sacrificed his youth - that was how he might present himself, not without effect. And it was true, in a way. He was physically brave, he had ideals, he was born a peasant and knew what it was to be despised. And she too, just now, had been despising him. — Alice Munro

Prayer is essentially a process by which ideals are enabled to become operative in our lives. It may be more than this, but it is at least this. — Georgia Harkness

A child motivated by competitive ideals will grow into a man without conscience, shame, or true dignity. — George Sand

No nation is better than its sacred book. In that book are expressed its highest ideals of life, and no nation rises above those ideals. No nation has a sacred book to be compared with ours. This American nation from its first settlement at Jamestown to the present hour is based upon and permeated by the principles of the Bible. The more this Bible enters into our national life the grander and purer and better will that life become. — David Josiah Brewer

A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.
It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune make for a finer, nobler type of manhood.
Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. — Theodore Roosevelt

Katherine often teases me that I'm missing the need-a-boyfriend gene, but the truth is I just haven't met anyone who ... well, whom I'm attracted to, even though part of me longs for the fabled trembling knees, heart-in-my-mouth, butterflies-in-my-belly moments. Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me. Perhaps I've spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high. But in reality, nobody's ever made me feel like that. — E.L. James

Human nature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim of some kind; as the sanity of the Old Testament truly said, where there is no vision the people perish. But it is precisely because an ideal is necessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger of fanaticism. — G.K. Chesterton

The Hellenistic world was international to a degree, polyglot and inspired by many religious faiths ... the Greek ideals were pagan and the Hellenistic age witnessed their death struggle against Asiatic and Egyptian mysteries , on the one side, and against Judaism , on the other. — George Sarton

I was attracted to poetry, which is perhaps the purest of the art forms, where love is the medium of exchange and the nobility of love is considered. It's a land of higher ideals. — Frederick Lenz

We have retreated from the perennial values. I don't think that we need any new values. The most important thing is to try to revive the universally known values from which we have retreated.
As a young man, I really took to heart the Communist ideals. A young soul certainly cannot reject things like justice and equality. These were the goals proclaimed by the Communists. But in reality that terrible Communist experiment brought about repression of human dignity. Violence was used in order to impose that model on society. In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of "openness" and freedom. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Once in a while, though, he could not help seeing how shallow, fickle, and meaningless all human aspirations are, and how emptily our real impulses contrast with those pompous ideals we profess to hold. — H.P. Lovecraft

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

People imprison themselves. — Bruce Crown

I am closer to a European viewpoint of the world than an American one. My ethics and ideals are based on European concepts. — Bianca Jagger

When the voice of your friend or the page of your book sinks into democratic equality with the pattern of the wallpaper, the feel of your clothes, your memory of last night, and the noises from the road, you are falling asleep. The highly selective consciousness enjoyed by fully alert men, with all its builded sentiments and consecrated ideals, has as much to be called real as the drowsy chaos, and more. — C.S. Lewis

Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back. — G.K. Chesterton

Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavour to accomplish it. That is a surer way of progress than taking up other men's ideals, which he can never hope to accomplish. — Swami Vivekananda

The man who has his ideals, no matter how thoroughly he may be persuaded to desert them, survives well only so long as he is true to those ideals. — L. Ron Hubbard

The message of the United States is not nuclear power. The message of the United States is a spiritual message. It is the message of human ideals; it is the message of human dignity; it is the message of the freedom of ideas, speech, press, the right to assemble, to worship, and the message of freedom of movement of people. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The Romans were a strong power before Virgil, but the Greeks had captured their imaginations. While Rome conquered physical Greece, Greek mythology had enveloped Rome. The Empire coul be confident in itself until a Roman poet matched Homer and harmonized Greek civilization with Roman ideals — John Mark Reynolds

We in America have some grand ideals - and some very strong ideals - but a lot of times, those ideals are used for marketing. — Brad Pitt

I think it's really terrifying that a country based on the foundations and ideals of God, is now systematically removing God from everything. Everything! — Stephen Baldwin

Religions, creeds and forms are only a characteristic outward sign of the spiritual impulsion and religion itself is the intensive action by which it tries to find its inward force. Its expansive movement comes in the thought which it throws out on life, the ideals which open up new horizons and which the intellect accepts and life labours to assimilate. — Sri Aurobindo

In the beautiful words of Staton Kirkham Davis, 'You may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience - the pen still behind your ear, the ink-stains on you fingers - and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city - bucolic and open-mouthed; shall wander under the intrepid guidance of a spirit into the studio of the master, and after a time he shall say, 'I have nothing more to teach you.' And now you have become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world. — James Allen

I know that Dad was an idol to millions who grew up loving his music and his ideals. But to me he wasn't a musician or a peace icon, he was the father I loved and who let me down in so many ways. After the age of five, when my parents separated, I saw him only a handful of times, and when I did he was often remote and intimidating. I grew up longing for more contact with him but felt rejected and unimportant in his life.
... While Dad was fast becoming one of the wealthiest men in his field, Mum and I had very little and she was going out to work to support us. — Julian Lennon

It matters what myths we tell ourselves -- which ideals we choose to honor. — Robert Roper

We have come to a generation which seeks advance without ideals - discovery without stars. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist - someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations. — Peter M. Senge

Betterment of conditions the world over is not essentially dependent on scientific knowledge but on the fulfillment of human traditions and ideals. — Albert Einstein

Books took, in her young life, the place of companions and childish games. She read a great deal without guidance or discrimination, and gained all her ideas on life, all her faith, all her ideals and aims and aspirations from books. Books stood between her and reality, and hid from her those deep truths that can never be learnt from even the greatest literary production, but can only be understood after long years of untiring observation and experience. It was in books also that Irene found her ideal of the man she could love. Her hero was an exceedingly complicated character. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be. — Pema Chodron

The exotic and the erotic ideals go hand in hand, and this fact also contributes another proof of a more or less obvious truth - that is, that a love of the exotic is usually an imaginative projection of a sexual desire. — Mario Praz

He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat — George Bernard Shaw

Among life's sweetest blessings is fellowship with men and women whose ideals and aspirations are high and noble. Next to a sense of kinship with God comes the helpfulness, encouragement, and inspiration of friends. — David O. McKay

The new generation of researchers must be given the skills and values - not just scientific ideals, but also awareness of human weaknesses - that will enable it to correct its forebears' mistakes. — Heinrich Rohrer

There are parliamentarians in Australia I really support. People through history, you know? Men like Ned Kelly in Australia who challenged ideals. Governor William McKell in Australia really set the tone of building a nation. The fundamentals of the country are built on what the governor McKell created. I think Sea Shepherd (Conservation Society) is a wonderful organization and I support what they do. — Dustin Clare

The task of critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the name of the betrayed ideal — Erich Fromm

It is a testimony to the genuine lingering power of leftist ideals that anyone would even consider voting for a party that promoted this sort of thing - because surely, if they do, it's not because they actually think these are good policies, but because these are the only policies anyone who identifies themselves as left-of-center is allowed to set forth. — David Graeber

Our chaotic economic situation has convinced so many of our young people that there is no room for them. They become uncertain andrestless and morbid; they grab at false promises, embrace false gods and judge things by treacherous values. Their insecurity makes them believe that tomorrow doesn't matter and the ineffectualness of their lives makes them deny the ideals which we of an older generation acknowledged. — Hortense Odlum

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. — Louisa May Alcott

They were both in their own ways earnest; they both wanted to achieve some worthy end or other, change the world for the better. Such alluring, such perilous ideals! — Margaret Atwood

Let moral ideals remain merely for those poor anaemic creatures of starved desire whose grasp is weak. Those who can desire with all their soul and enjoy with all their heart, those who have no hesitation or scruple, it is they who are the anointed of Providence. Nature spreads out her riches and loveliest treasures for their benefit. They swim across streams, leap over walls, kick open doors, to help themselves to whatever is worth taking. In such a getting one can rejoice; such wresting as this gives value to the thing taken. Nature — Rabindranath Tagore

Violence is the fear to other's ideals. — Mahatma Gandhi

Bomb-proof vault. Our diseases are our attachments, be they habits, ideologies, ideals, principles, possessions, phobias, gods, cults, religions, what you please. Good wages can be a disease just as much as bad wages. Leisure can be just as great a disease as work. Whatever we cling to, even if it be hope or faith, can be the disease which carries us off. Surrender is absolute: if you cling to even the tiniest crumb you nourish the germ which will devour you. — Henry Miller

What borders on the criminal is the poor teaching and neglect of those subjects that deal with the history of ideas and ideals, a knowledge of which is essential to all youth who would assume their place in society as thinking, feeling human beings. — John Mortimer Smith

Formed with good intentions, with the right ideals and the right goals. — Veronica Roth

What is soft power? It is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. — Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Art, science, love, inspiration, ideals - choose out all the words with which humanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be amused - Chekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and die. And Chekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes. Only his wonderful art did not die - his art to kill by a mere touch, a breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take their pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in European literature. — Lev Shestov

Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The so-called poet with his vague dreams and ideals is indeed no better than a harmless lunatic; the true poet is the worker, who grips life's throat and wrings out its secret, who selects austerely and composes concisely, whose work is as true and clean as razor-steel, albeit its sweep is vaster and swifter than the sun's! — Aleister Crowley

We talk of lost ideals, but perhaps they are not lost, only changed; when our ideal for ourselves and for our children becomes limited to prosperity and comfort, we get these, very likely, for ourselves and for them, but we get no more. — Charlotte Mason

Now you need young men, bright young men, with minds asking 'how' rather than 'why,' and who are good at masking, at blending, I should say, their personal interests with vague public ideals. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

If Anonymous and Lulzsec are the id of hacking, then physical hackerspaces are the heart of the higher-minded hacking ideals: freedom of information, meritocracy of ideas, a joy of learning and anti-authoritarianism. — Heather Brooke

Average human nature is very coarse, and its ideals must necessarily be average. The world never loved perfect poise. What the world does love is commonly absence of poise, for it has to be amused. — Henry Adams

Philosophy's greatest task is to enlarge our sense of possibility. — Susan Neiman

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. — Barack Obama

In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war [WW II], and I defy the powers of darkness which they represent. I am proud to die for my ideals, and I am sorry for the sons of Britain who have died without knowing why. — William Joyce

Where no guiding ideals are left to point the way, the scale of values disappears and with it the meaning of our deeds and sufferings, and at the end can lie only negation and despair. Religion is therefore the foundation of ethics, and ethics the presupposition of life. — Werner Heisenberg

I mean," he said, "that by your own showing, the greatest threat to heaven comes from within the ranks of the angels themselves. Before you can prove to me that heroes can defeat villains with nothing but the purest chivalric ideals, you must convince me that heroes do exist, and that villains are not a fanciful tale for children. You must tell me, sir, if you dare, that you are incorruptible, and that your colleagues and commanders are as pure as you. — Suzannah Rowntree

Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level. — Alexander Haig

However great his outward conformity, the immigrant is not Americanized unless his interests and affections have become deeply rooted here. And we properly demand of the immigrant even more than this. He must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. — Louis D. Brandeis

According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires-it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self. — Robert P. George

And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. — Barack Obama

It has not been my fortune to know very much of Freemasonry, but I have had the great fortune to know many Freemasons and have been able in that way to judge the tree by its fruit. I know of your high ideals. I have seen that you hold your meetings in the presence of the open Bible, and I know that men who observe that formality have high sentiments of citizenship, of worth, and character. That is the strength of our Commonwealth and nation. — Calvin Coolidge

The ideal may seem remote of execution, but the democratic ideal of education is a farcical yet tragic delusion except as the ideal more and more dominates our public system of education. — John Dewey

Ideals are like tuning forks: sound them often to bring your life up to standard pitch. — S.D. Gordon

One of the very hallmarks of our nation is the ideal of E Pluribus Unum. It is a concept that richly flows from the highest ideals of our nation. — Cory Booker

One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population - we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values. — Barack Obama

Our founding fathers started this country and built it on God and His Word, and this country sure would be a better place to live and raise our children if we still followed their ideals and beliefs. — Phil Robertson

If a woman like Eva Peron with no ideals can get that far, think how far I can go with the ideals that I have. — Margaret Thatcher

I extend my greetings and good wishes to all our citizens on the joyous occasion of Deepawali. The festival of lights, celebrated with gaiety and enthusiasm all over the country, signifies the victory of good over evil and is an appropriate occasion for us to resolve to follow the high ideals in life. — Mohammad Hamid Ansari

My ideals told me that men and women could both go out to work and be truly equal. My children told me something more complicated, something I really didn't want to hear. Their need for me was like the need for water or light: it had a devastating simplicity to it. — Allison Pearson

great principles, great ideals know no nationality. — Marcus Garvey

Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody. Not a few men who cherish lofty and noble ideals hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Someone said to me once that a cigarette at the right moment is better than all the ideals in the world. — Erich Maria Remarque

But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ideals? Perhaps - but this was still not quite it. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it was not the same unbearable loneliness that I now felt that had brought K to his decision. — Soseki Natsume

My father once told me that American democracy is a people's democracy at heart, and that it therefore can be as great as the American people, or as fallible. It depends on all of us. But our system is more fragile than we know. To sustain it, we must always cherish the ideals on which it was founded, remain vigilant against the dark forces that threaten it, and actively engage in the process of making it work. — George Takei

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose. — Justin S. Holcomb

Ideals are great in theory ... but they don't work too well in real life. — Laurell K. Hamilton

I came to see that man finds meaning in his existence only through the active demonstration of his human self, a cosmos comprising the entire constellation of life's factors: culture, civilization, tradition, history, ideals, facts, physical conditions, one's mental state, the ecology, and so on. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

The gospel should meet people at the point of their deepest confusion and at the height of their loftiest ideals. What matters most is that we bring Christ into every moment of human history and every point of human concern. — Christopher W. Brooks

I have devoted my whole life to Physical Culture. I shall devote the rest too for the same. I have seen the degradation in which we are at present. I have travelled extensively and all that I have remarked here is from experience; and my suggestions are to meet the situation. I know they would, if adapted remedy the evil; for, I have studied carefully the position. If we in all seriousness wish to call ourselves the descendants of the mighty Yoddhas of past, if we wish not to cast a blot on the fair name of India, if we wish that India should have a future vying with its glorious past, if we wish that we should gain an honorable and equal place among the peoples of the world it should be our sacred resolve from now to wake up from the sleep as a lion; we should muster muscle and steel the body. For all greatness lies in Culture and 1 should only be too gratified if my scheme could put the youth of the country on the right track to achieve our most cherished Ideals. — Kodi Ramamurthy Naidu

In our observances this Memorial Day, we honor the brave Americans who paid the highest price for their commitment to the ideals of peace, freedom, and justice. Our debt to them can be paid only by our own recommitment to preserving those same ideals. — Ronald Reagan

People talk about beautiful relationships between two persons of the same sex. What is the best of that sort as compared with the friendship of man and wife where the best impulses and highest ideals of both are the same? There is no place for comparison between the two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine. — Mark Twain

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. — Andrew Sullivan

It is my pleasure to support a candidate who truly reflects our values and highest ideals. — Martin Sheen

The Muslims of recent times had fallen very short indeed of the ideals of their faith, ... nothing could be more erroneous than to measure the potentialities of Muhammad's message by the yardstick of present-day Muslim life and thought - just as he [Shaykh Mustafa al-Maraghi] said, 'it would be erroneous to see in the Christians' unloving behavior toward one another a refutation of Christ's message of love ... ' — Muhammad Asad

We, however, want to become those we are
human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense
while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics
our honesty! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Our freedoms were born in the ideals of the Enlightenment and the musket fires of an historic revolution. — John Boehner

In attaining our ideals,our means should be as pure as the end! — Rajendra Prasad

The real weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or unfortified coasts, not in the poverty that creeps through sunless lanes, or the drunkenness that brawls in loathsome courts, but simply in the fact that her ideals are emotional and not intellectual. — Oscar Wilde

The social system tends to be dominated by images ... especially of the future, which act cybernetically , constantly guided by perceived divergences between the real and the ideal — Kenneth E. Boulding

Like the tide eroding the surface of a rock, the raising of children slowly eats away at all the fanciful ideals and standards that you were so adamant about when your first child was born. — Jon Ziegler

It's not that parents love their children less than in generations past. It's that they no longer receive consistent societal support for the belief that parenting is their highest priority ... TV messages championed rather then detracted from wholesome ideals ... maybe "the old days" before the societal changes of the '60s weren't perfect, but they allowed a bevy of family-friendly forces to surround parents with encouragement for their mission ... — Diane Medved

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong. — G.K. Chesterton

The people of each country get more like the people of every other country. They have no character, no beauty, no ideals, no culture-nothing, nothing." ...
"Everything's getting gray, and it'll be grayer. — Paul Bowles

I think,' Olympia said slowly, 'that I know you quite well.' She looked down at the deck and added in a carefully mild voice, 'You can be a scoundrel; I know that. You stole from me and betrayed me and lied to me. You have no morals and no ideals; you think of yourself first and you're a coward sometimes on that account.' She hesitated, chewing her lip. 'What people call a coward, anyway. I don't know what cowardice is anymore. I don't know what heroism is.' She looked up. 'But I know one thing, and I learned it from you. I know what courage means. It means to pick up and go on, no matter what. It means having a heart of iron, like they say. You have that. — Laura Kinsale

Leaders are the custodians of a nation's ideals, of the beliefs it cherishes, of its permanent hopes, of the faith which makes a nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals. — Walter Lippmann

To all that come to this happy place, welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America ... with hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world. — Walt Disney Company