Quotes Tagged "ideals"

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

The scepticism which men affect towards their higher inspirations is often not an honest doubt, but a guilty negligence, and is a sign of narrow mind and defective wisdom.

A masculine man wears his attitude. He is as much comfortable wearing three piece suits as he is in wearing ripped torn jeans. He does not chase love, women, or power. He gets them anyhow. He would never ever give up his masculinity for anyone or anything in his life. He lives by his ideals that are tattooed to his soul. He does not believe in leading a comfortable life with luxuries. Rather he works hard to achieve his goals in life. He lives raw. He wanders often. And his life story becomes a testament to his masculinity!

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.

There is a difference between criticizing people and criticizing a people's uninformed ideals. That is, unless one defines himself or others by their ideals, then he is offended, and usually offended secretly. Because oddly enough, this person is the same person quickest to resort to dismissive name-calling, such as 'bigot' or 'zealot'. And oddly enough, he is always the one, the 'open-minded' one, who adamantly protests for, not only himself, but others not to listen to any type of scholarly theological truth inherently for the sake of his own personal, moral beliefs.

Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.

We hold our dreams and ideals close to our hearts, where the promises are made to the future generations.

No poet ever wrote a poem to dishonor life, to compromise high ideals, to scorn religious views, to demean hope or gratitude, to argue against tenderness, to place rancor before love, or to praise littleness of soul. Not one. Not ever.

They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.

I do not doubt the ability of mankind to aspire to lofty ideals and the most pristine of principles. But what I doubt is the willingness of mankind to incur the sacrifices involved in moving from aspiring these things to actually embracing them. And in such a conundrum as this, I would suggest that to stop at ‘aspiring’ and never move to ‘embracing’ is without a doubt the greatest sacrifice of all.

It is easier to believe in the ideal than it is to achieve it, but it is impossible to achieve the ideal if one does not believe in it.

He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals

The measure of a society is not only what it does but the quality of its aspirations.

What then is the secular ideal? The most important secular commitment is to the truth, which is based on observation and evidence rather than on mere faith. Seculars strive not to confuse truth with belief. If you have a very strong belief in some story, that may tell us a lot of interesting things about your psychology, about your childhood, and about your brain structure – but it does not prove that the story is true. (Often, strong beliefs are needed precisely when the story isn’t true.)

Your library is a reflection of your ideal self

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.

Ideals are an imaginative understanding of that which is desirable in that which is possible.

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.