Unattainable Quotes & Sayings

Unattainable wishes are often "pious." This seems to indicate that only profane wishes are fulfilled. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

He built a tower to try and be closer to her and walled himself inside."
She stared at him for a moment as if waiting for something. "And?"
He glanced at her, puzzled. "And, what?"
She widened her eyes. "How does the story end? Did the sorcerer win his Moon Maiden?"
"Of course not," he said irritably. "She lived on the moon and was quite unattainable. I suppose he must've starved or pined away or fallen off the wall at some point. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Pure love was always difficult to witness. Why was that, she wondered? Because it was so rare? So beautiful? SO damned unattainable for most of the poor saps muddling through this life? — Lynda Sandoval

There's a gate, in every attempt to reach its highest peak, intelligence is the main objective, IQ is its force ... unattainable for many, the beauty is still to be revealed, or is it
C — C.Granillo

Everyone is looking for the next big thrill to feel alive, chasing the unattainable. — Kim Askew

The foaminess of the Falls, together with the tinge of tawny yellow in the troubled waters, only reminded me of so much unattainable soda and sherry, and made me feel thirstier than ever. — George Augustus Henry Sala

Everything he wanted was comprised moreover in a single boon
the common unattainable art of taking things as they came. He appeared to himself to have given his best years to an active appreciation of the way they didn't come; but perhaps
as they would seemingly here be things quite other
this long ache might at last drop to rest. — Henry James

In the heir's world, where everything was available, the unattainable had a wild allure. — Geraldine Brooks

Romantic enthusiasm lifts the good aloft and removes it into the dim distance of the incomparable and unattainable; at the same time it portrays the good in a human countenance out of which it looks at us and we can look back at it, face to face, in admiration and ecstasy, and stretch out our arms towards it. Thus the moral good is represented in human, and at the same time superhuman, form; it is of our own kind, and yet above our kind; it confronts us, but makes no demands. IT is not really a standard and lacks the power to issues commandments. Both are given at once: the ethical which one would like to love; and the passive, the romantic, in which one wants to live. As a substitute for constant activity demanded by the ethical commandment, we have adoration in which the romantic impression of the moment in vented, and yearning which need only admire and enjoy but not achieve anything. — Leo Baeck

And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If we are able to meet these two requirements - regularity in meditation and leading a good life in society, day-to-day a good life - then nothing would be unattainable by us. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

For the first time in his life he'd dared to believe in happily-ever-after.He learned at a young age it was unattainable. Therefore, he'd never even tried ... until Claire. — Aleatha Romig

In some ways the operation of the feminine stereotype is so obvious and for many women entirely unattainable, that it can be easily reacted against. It takes a great deal of courage and independence to decide to design your own image instead of the one that society rewards, but it gets easier as you go along. Of course, a woman who goes her own way will find her conditioning is ineradicable, but she at least can recognize its operation and choose to counteract it, whereas a man might find that he was being more subtly deluded. — Germaine Greer

I love you till kingdom come, evergreen. — Anonymous

17. To pursue the unattainable is insanity, yet the thoughtless can never refrain from doing so. — Marcus Aurelius

The church of my own childhood, as well as that of my present and my future, comprises deeply flawed human beings struggling toward an unattainable ideal. — Philip Yancey

The most gratifying action plan that one can conceive is one that others deem unattainable only to be proven wrong. — Mark W. Boyer

She ... wanted no one - apart from men in nineteenth-century novels, which put a whole new spin on the idea of 'unattainable. — Kate Atkinson

A small piece of me still believed in hope. However minute or unattainable hope seemed, I wanted the childlike wonder. "I want you to love me. I need someone who needs me. But most of all, I know you understand me, and I crave that bond so much that when I'm with you, it's all I feel. It consumes me. Fires me. Eats at my fine tuned control until there is nothing left of me, but the feel of you in my bones. — E.R. Pierce

If you want to know what true art is: Go outside on a clear night, wait until it gets very, very dark, then look up! You will see no rules of composition, no evidence of superior technique. Yet, you will be staring into the very face of pure, unadulterated beauty and wonder. That is the unattainable Ideal for which I must constantly strive. — Derek R. Audette

...the state of perfection is an elusive goal; demanding something so obscure as almost unattainable and can become a compulsive, crazy making squirrel-on-a-wheel way of living. — David W. Earle

Overhead the moon guided him, his fair mistress, his unattainable lover. — Elizabeth Hoyt

I'm not searching for some mysterious, unattainable person, place or thing. I'm experiencing life! — Sandra Lee

Mass attention is almost unattainable and it's not clear that you want it. — Seth Godin

An adventure differs from a mere feat in that it is tied to the externally unattainable. Only one end of the rope is in the hand, the other is not visible, and neither prayers, nor daring, nor reason can shake it free. — William Bolitho

While we pursue the unattainable, we make impossible the realizable. — Robert Ardrey

Since it was my car, and since I felt confident it would make Marcus miserable, I pushed the Pearl Jam cassette into the tape deck as I got back on the freeway and turned it up. After a couple of tracks, Bas got hung up on trying to figure out the lyrics to "Yellow Ledbetter" - an unattainable goal since they were basically undecipherable sounds with a few words sprinkled in. The song was all feeling, but he was determined. We listened to it over and over, and caught a little more each time. Metaphorically, the song felt perfect for the mission we were on. — Veronica Rossi

Taylor Swift is so flawless, and so unattainable, and I don't think it's breeding anything good in young girls. — Lorde

Machine intelligence of a human nature could be a century away, and immortality is at least a millennium away, if not unattainable altogether. — Michael Shermer

To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness. — Emile Durkheim

In our minds lives the madonna image
the all-embracing, all- giving tranquil mother of a Raphael painting, one child at her breast, another at her feet; a woman fulfilled, one who asks nothing more than to nurture and nourish. This creature of fantasy, this myth, is the model
the unattainable ideal against which women measure, not only their performance, but their feelings about being mothers. — Lillian B. Rubin

Don't shoot for something unattainable - completely outside of your nature or opportunity. — Michael Johnson

He was forty, which is the most frightening age in life. You don't feel sorry for the old, because they are old already; you don't feel sorry for the dead, because they are dead already. But you do feel sorry for those approaching old age, those approaching death. Forty! At fairgrounds you see roller coasters dashing up a steep slope followed by a steep drop and then another ascent. At the top of the slope, or rather just before the top, the vehicle has used up all the energy it acquired in the descent and it slows down and hesitates as if the top were unattainable, as it it were terrified of the approaching plunge. The man approaching forty is in a similar state of hesitation and uncertainty; his pace slackens, he is paralyzed by the approaching summit and the descent he cannot see but knows lies just ahead. — Pitigrilli

I could stand to lose 10 or 15 pounds, but honestly, I'm happy the way I am. I feel comfortable with it. I'd rather have that extra 10, 15 pounds on me than live a lifestyle of trying to sustain this unattainable weight. — Stephanie Klein

Despite the knowledge that her affections were unattainable, I couldn't help but be drawn to try. — Kiera Cass

He fished steadily, trying to fight down a dragging, aching sense of loss, wondering how one's brain should know all the sensible answers while one's emotions longed for the unattainable. — M.C. Beaton

It was the end for me. And yet not an end. In all the years which have since elapsed she remains the woman I loved and lost, the unattainable one [ ... ] I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.
- Henry Miller, Stand Still like the Hummingbird (1962) — Henry Miller

Forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past
oh so bright and clear!
oh so longed after!
because they are out of reach; as holiday music from within a prison wall
or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable
more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape. — William Makepeace Thackeray

And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point which, for others, seems unattainable! "That — Charlotte Bronte

let's focus on the unattainable — Marc Johns

The combination of creative energies and the need to perform at the highest level to keep up with peers leads to an otherwise unattainable commitment to excellence. — Ken Robinson

Left alone in the room with Gavin, Alex let out a sigh. "I fear I won't be able to find a way out of this. How did his even happen? I went out of my way to avoid attracting suitors last night."
Leaning back in his chair, Gavin leveled Alex with a serious look. "You've learned your first lesson, Minx. Men chase that what seems unattainable."
"No. What I learned was that mean are gluttons for punishment. Why 'chase' me when they could catch any number of eligible young females from last evening?"
"Silly girl ... because chasing you makes for more of a challenge
and more of a reward. — Sarah MacLean

Dynamic ecstasy is absolute romanticism , absolute heroism . And here I return to my point. From my point of view, after the catastrophe which we feel and think is universal, a catastrophe resulting from an excess of useless dynamism of useless progress, of useless realism, of useless technology, after this an unattainable democracy is to be reached through the conception and realization of a new romanticism. — Juan Ramon Jimenez

Even within perfection, there are flaws. These flaws carry an unattainable beauty, which is indifferent to the human nature. — Nocturnus Libertus

What is this thing that makes us human? Birth, heartbreak, a desire for safety and order? Is it anger, shame, or fear? What we desire is unattainable and although we know it, we keep striving for it. Sisyphus, the Greek god, and all that. — Fadia Faqir

Attain the unattainable. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

When wealth ascends to a point where the majority of the poor finally comprehend that it is, for each of them, unattainable, then all civility collapses, and anarchy prevails. — Steven Erikson

The blood kept welling up and getting over things so that she couldn't see what she was doing, which annoyed her; but she knew that theoretical clarity was unattainable in times of action. — William T. Vollmann

There was no putting back what had been taken...Because, more than anything, what these people made clear was that the tragedy my mother was suffering through was unattainable and unknowable to me, no matter my close proximity. It was something not even the visitors could fathom, they told me.......and ultimately, this sense of futility made me fell more separate from my mother than close to her.
So, I thought, what chance did I have to fix her?
.....My Sunshine Away — M O Walsh

The young do not demand omniscience. They know it is unattainable. They do demand sincerity. — Gilbert Highet

Reading," he says, "is always this: there is a thing that is there, a thing made of writing, a solid, material object, which cannot be changed, and through this thing we measure ourselves against something else that is not present, something else that belongs to the immaterial, invisible world, because it can only be thought, imagined, or because it was once and is no longer, past, lost, unattainable, in the land of the dead. . . . — Italo Calvino

Perfection is the enemy of greatness. We as people are limited in the knowledge and information we have, so to say one has reached all of the highest standards of what is known as the conventional consummation of human excellence means there is nothing more they would have to learn. This of course, is impossible, for there are always new things to learn, and so perfection is unachievable and unattainable. — Nocturnus Libertus

We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God's holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God's power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

My existence is such that "I" do not really exist. At the end of understanding so much I understand that I know nothing. I suffer for being surrounded by intense suffering and yet I'm deeply suspicious if first of all there is indeed any consciousness except me. I strive to find the artist who might have fathered this great universal art but feel myself to be too feeble to accomplish this seemingly unattainable mission. Yet I have every respect for life, and it is this sheer respect that makes me live. — Kedar Joshi

Dwight Langley, the painter, is the pure exponent of the evil the play is attacking; he is, in effect, the spokesman for Platonism, who explicitly preaches that beauty is unreachable in this world and perfection unattainable. Since he insists that ideals are impossible on earth, he cannot, logically enough, believe in the reality of any ideal, even when it actually confronts him. Thus, although he knows every facet of Kay Gonda's face, he (alone among the characters) does not recognize her when she appears in his life. This philosophically induced blindness, which motivates his betrayal of her, is a particularly brilliant concretization of the play's theme, and makes a dramatic Act I curtain. — Ayn Rand

Nagging questions remain: Where is the line between making the most of one's potential and reaching for the unattainable? Where is the line between education as a tool and education as a kind of magic? The line is blurred and that is why when education fails, disillusionment is so bitter. — Henry Anatole Grunwald

Who strive not for objects unattainable, grieve not for what lost and gone be,
Who suffer not mind clouded amid mishap, have intellect with wisdom truly.
[26] - 33 Mahatma Vidur — Munindra Misra

There are more guys than girls in jazz.
Next-to-no lady trumpeters
(oh, there are a few)
but it doesn't matter because, for me, jazz trumpet is all about one guy
Miles Davis.
He made this famous album in 1959
called Kind of Blue
which is kind of, always,
how I feel.
That album gets into your bones
goes and goes
starts, hesitates, reaches out, feels
for the music, the sound, the thing you want to change.
Always grasping for the unattainable makes you
kind of excited,
kind of sorry. — Stasia Ward Kehoe

Like the librarians of Babel in Borges's story, who are looking for the book that will provide them with the key to all the others, we oscillate between the illusion of perfection and the vertigo of the unattainable. In the name of completeness, we would like to believe that a unique order exists that would enable us to accede in knowledge all in one go; in the name of the unattainable, we would like to think that order and disorder are in fact the same word, denoting pure chance.
It's possible also that both are decoys, illusions intended to disguise the erosion of both books and systems. It is no bad thing in any case that between the two our bookshelves should serve from time to time as joggers of the memory, as cat-rests and as lumber-rooms. — Georges Perec

Eleven reasons you want to become a robot:

1. Robots are logical and know their purpose.
2. Robots have programming they understand.
3. Robots are not held to unattainable standards and then criticized when they fail.
4. Robots are not crippled by emotions they don't know how to process.
5. Robots are not judged based on what sex organs they were born with.
6. Robots have mechanical bodies that are strong and durable. They are not required to have sex.
7. Robots do not feel guilt (about existing, about failing, about being something other than expected).
8. Robots can multitask.
9. Robots do not feel unsafe all the time.
10. Robots are perfect machines that are capable and functional and can be fixed if something breaks.
11. Robots are happy. — A. Merc Rustad

Christianity set itself the goal of fulfilling man's unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignored his attainable desires. By promising man eternal life, it deprived him of temporal life, by teaching him to trust in God's help it took away his trust in his own powers; by giving him faith in a better life in heaven, it destroyed his faith in a better life on earth and his striving to attain such a life. Christianity gave man what his imagination desires, but for that very reason failed to give him what he really and truly desires. — Ludwig Feuerbach

Greek women were not allowed to be: free and untamed. In fact, Artemis is a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, her commitment to purity must have been greatly admired by Ancient Greeks; yet she is also untamable and answers to no man. She is truly the eternal wild child who never has to grow up and shoulder the responsibilities that adulthood brings. She never has to compromise herself or conform to any of society's standards. No wonder she is associated with the moon - completely untouchable, forever unattainable. If offered the option of becoming one of Artemis' immortal maidens, freed forever from the shackles of marriage or slavery, I think many Ancient Greek women would have jumped on that bandwagon as it careened past — Rick Riordan

She'd never stood a chance. She was a good girl, raised on the bible and charm school. She was destined to long for the thrill of the unattainable and nobody was more unattainable to a good girl than the bad boy. — Jess Bryant

Every man that ever lived craved perfect happiness, the detective poignantly reflected. But how can we have it when we know we're going to die? Each joy was clouded by the knowledge it would end. And so nature had implanted in us a desire for something unattainable? No. It couldn't be. It makes no sense. Every other striving implanted by nature had a corresponding object that wasn't a phantom. Why this exception? the detective reasoned. It was nature making hunger when there wasn't any food. We continue. We go on. Thus death proved life. — William Peter Blatty

Truth may be unattainable, but honesty is not. — Stephen Watson

-no matter what we do, we'll never succeed in attaining the 'perfect' body or the 'perfect' face. This isn't just because perfection is an unattainable goal; it's because capitalism relies on people being constantly unhappy so it can keep selling us the promise that consumerism will make our lives better. — Clementine Ford

An act of meditation is actually an act of faith
of faith in your spirit, in your own potential. Faith is the basis of meditation. Not of faith in something outside you
a metaphysical buddha, an unattainable ideal, or someone else's words. The faith is in yourself, in your own 'buddha nature.' You too can be a buddha, an awakened being that lives and responds in a wise, creative, and compassionate way. — Martine Batchelor

Perfection is not to be attained, but to be pursued infinitely. — Abhijit Naskar

Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors. — Aldous Huxley

In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect. — Eric Hoffer

Christian Grey - he isn't a real person. He's a superhero. A myth. He's like Bigfoot! He's unbelievable. He's unattainable. There's no actor in the world who could live up to that. — Jamie Dornan

I'm starting to understand that attempting to be perfect has been the goal of my life. Our lives. Attempting to be this fault-free, smiling person in this loving, happy family that fits so perfectly in this pretty, inoffensive little town. What was so bad about that goal after all? Only that I couldn't do it. That I let everybody down. I've been so down about it, so depressed thinking about all the balls I was trying to juggle that I've dropped, and now the cogs are turning toward total apathy toward it all, everything and all I can think about is that I am a shell of a human being. I'm a pushover. I'm to blame. — Abigail Tarttelin

Set reasonable goals; not something vague and unrealistic like "I want to be super-model skinny." I always had visions of very thin actresses in my mind when I was at the gym and it seemed so unattainable that I would quit any health regimen before it even got off the ground. But when I changed my mindset to focusing on making the healthiest choices possible for myself, it was a lot more realistic, more attainable, and then the results were visible. — Alison Sweeney

It's easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing unattainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness wh's kind of bossy
then I had to basically start liking a whole different person. — John Green

She was sitting there in her little housedress. He knew she'd done what she could to avoid becoming luminous and unattainable. Timidly and with respect, he was looking at her. He'd grown older, weary, curious. But he didn't have a single word to say. From the open doorway he saw his wife on the sofa without leaning back, once again alert and tranquil, as if on a train. That had already departed. — Clarice Lispector

Because I don't really want to fall in love. Nathan is safe because he's unattainable. — Will McIntosh

A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision ... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Then let us all do what is right, strive with all our might toward the unattainable, develop as fully as we can the gifts God has given us, and never stop learning — Ludwig Van Beethoven

Four things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. — Dorothy Parker

For reason's measurements, which attain unto temporal things, do not attain unto things that are free from time-just as hearing does not attain unto whatever is not-audible, even though these things exist and are unattainable by hearing. — Nicholas Of Cusa

If there be any who nurture in their hearts the poisonous brew of enmity toward another, I plead with you to ask the Lord for strength to forgive. This expression of desire will be of the very substance of your repentance. It may not be easy, and it may not come quickly. But if you will seek it with sincerity and cultivate it, it will come. And even though he whom you have forgiven continues to pursue and threaten you, you will know you have done what you could to effect a reconciliation. There will come into your heart a peace otherwise unattainable. — Gordon B. Hinckley

What is this Love that so many speak of with such apparent familiarity? Do
they truly comprehend how unattainable it is? Are there not as many
definitions of Love as there are stars in the universe? — Brian Herbert

It's wrong for women to be constantly shy and embarrassed about their bodies. There are so many images of unattainable beauty that are so destructive. It's important to show how your body really is. As the cliche has it, beauty comes from within. — Alex Kingston

It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable. — Betty Smith

We're [as parents] striving for an unattainable, inauthentic shell, and ignoring the real nut, the gooey inside: love, laughter, and fulfillment from simple things. — Julie Lythcott-Haims

Religion requires perfection, but the kingdom values excellence. If we strive for perfection and don't allow ourselves room to be wrong, we will never grow. Perfection is an unattainable destination, but excellence is an exciting journey. It's a journey in which we allow the Holy Spirit to teach, guide, and mentor us. If you strive to never make a mistake, you will make the biggest one by never stepping out in faith. — Bob Hazlett

The elders say- difficult to prove- that winged creatures also dream. The birds are lovers of heights, always searching out landing spots, never constant here at the foot of the human race. 'It's that they discovered a magical advantage ... ' they say, 'the sound of silence.'
At the foot of the clouds the raindrops come earlier, it's true, and the silence of the sky is something unattainable for those who don't fly- we have never experimented. The dream of the birds was that man of them headed for a land where they experienced a similar magic to that lived by them.
In the final analysis, music is the only human sound similar to that of silence. — Ondjaki

It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits - like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere, or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits - involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding - inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, or a Roosevelt can feel himself to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, or a Blake. Understanding is forever unattainable. — Malcolm Muggeridge

Omnicompetence,' the ability to obtain whatever one wants or needs, is an unattainable but continuously approachable ideal for all mankind - past, present, and future. — Russell L. Ackoff

I said, "The thing we quested after is never attained."
He said, "The unattainable - that thing is my desire! — Muhammad Iqbal

Perfection is unattainable, so I like to live in imperfection. — Nikki Sixx

The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us. — Vladimir Nabokov

Erah Graesin had a silky, low voice. It was reputed to be sexy, but then, everything about Terah Graesin was supposed to be sexy. Kylar didn't see it. Oh, she was pretty. She had a wide mouth, full lips, and the kind of figure that was unattainable for the majority of noblewomen who spent their days doing nothing more strenuous than issuing orders to the servants. Maybe it was that she was a little too self-consciously good-looking. She wore lots of makeup - expertly applied and subtle, but lots - and had tweezed her eyebrows down to tiny lines. The truth was, she held herself like he ought to admire her, and it pissed him off. What pissed him off more was that to look her in the eye with his disguise, he had to stare straight at her admittedly perky breasts. Dammit, why were breasts so intriguing? — Brent Weeks

Love is terrifying and hard and awful but it's also amazing and beautiful, and there's something about us, as humans, that wants that perfect relationship even though we know it's probably unattainable, and even if we do manage to get it, holding on to t, helping it grow into something that will last a lifetime, well ... it's daunting in its impossibility. — Ted Michael

He reached out for her hand and she grabbed onto his.
"Eena, when you're ready to talk about it, I'll be here. That's what best friends are for."
She let the tears fall. He'd never know they were for him. He'd think they were because of Derian. They held hands silently throughout the night, Ian unaware that this was by far her most tortured nightmare ever. Paradise so close, and yet completely unattainable. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. — Dorothea Lange

Romanticism embodied a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals. — Isaiah Berlin

You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable. — Wilhelm Reich

In crafting the Constitution, the Founders emphasized process, not results. If we follow the Constitution, we won't have a perfect society, which is unattainable by imperfect humans. But we will provide opportunity for people to use their natural rights to pursue the acquisition of property and their personal happiness. The results may yield sharp inequalities of income, but the process will guarantee chances for almost everyone. — Burton W. Folsom Jr.

I tell my students to try early in life to find an unattainable objective. — George Wald