Our ideals resemble the stars; you will not succeed in touching
them with your hands.  But like seafarers on the desert waters,
you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.

Carl Schurz

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

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

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because
they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out.  Yet, I keep them,
because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good
at heart.  I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting
of confusion, misery, and death.  I see the world gradually being turned
into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy
us, too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the
heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end,
and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Anne Frank

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 Hugo

No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.

Daisy Bates

HOME - contents - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity - advertising - aging - ambition - anger - anticipation
apathy - appreciation - arrogance - art - attitude - authenticity - awakening - awareness - awe - balance - beauty - being yourself
beliefs - body - brooding - busyness - celebration - challenges - change - character - children - choices - Christianity - coincidence
commitment - common sense - community - comparison - compassion - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence
conformity - conscience - contentment - control - courage - covetousness - creativity - criticism - cruelty -  death - desire - determination
discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth - education - ego - encouragement - enlightenment -  enthusiasm - envy - eternity
experience - failure -  faith - family - fathers - fault-finding - fear - finances - flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - fun
gardening - generosity - gentleness - giving - goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greed - grief - growing up - guilt - happiness
hatred - healing - health - helpfulness - home - honesty - hope - hospitality - humility - ideals -idleness  - idolatry - ignorance -  imagination
impatience - individuality - inspiration - integrity - introspection - intuition - jealousy - joy - judgment - kindness - knowledge - laughter
laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness - love - lying - marriage - materialism - meanness - mindfulness
miracles - mistakes - mistrust - mothers - mystery - nature - negative attitude - now - oneness - open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism
pain - patience - peace - perfectionism - perseverance - perspective - pessimism - play - positive thoughts - possessions - potential - prayer
prejudice - pride - principle - purpose - relationships - religion - resentment - respect - responsibility - rest - revenge - risk - role models - sadness
safety - self - self-love - self-pity - self-respect - serving others - shame - silence - simplicity - solitude - spirit - stress - stupidity - success
suffering - thoughts - time - today - trust - truth - unfulfilled dreams - values - vanity - war - weight issues - wisdom - wonder - work - worship
youth - spring - summer - fall - winter - worry - Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - America - zen sayings - Native American wisdom
The Law of Attraction  - obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents - our most recent e-zine - articles

James Russell Lowell

What we need most, is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real.

H.F. Hedge

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history
is shaped.  Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of
others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.

Robert F. Kennedy

James Allen

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

Henry Ford

Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds.
They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.

Emma Goldman

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Our ideals are our better selves.

Amos Bronson Alcott

Calvin Coolidge

You don’t get old from living a particular number of years:  you get old because
you have deserted your ideals.  Years wrinkle your skin, renouncing your
ideals wrinkles your soul.  Worry, doubt, fear, and despair are the enemies
which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.

Douglas MacArthur