Quotes About Ideals

One of the baffling things about life is that the purposes of institutions may be ideal, while their administration, dependent upon the faults and weaknesses of human beings, may be bad.

Some might read this and say to themselves, "Who gives a damn what happened to a terrorist after what they did on September 11?" But it's not about them. It never was. What makes us exceptional? Our wealth? Our natural resources? Our military power? Our big, bountiful country? No, our founding ideals and our fidelity to them at home and in our conduct in the world make us exceptional.

Demographics aren't destiny. Our culture isn't the work of one race or religion. To suggest otherwise is to contradict our ideals and to doubt their power.

Nice feelings are for people who have money to live as they please. If I had ten thousand a year, or even five, I would snap my fingers at all men, and say, 'No, I make my life as I choose, and shall cultivate knowledge and books, and indulge in beautiful ideas of honor and exalted sentiments, and perhaps one day succumb to a noble passion.

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.

The most important thing in the universe, it turns out, is a complex of subjective and individual approximations. Of tries and fails. Of ideals, and things we do to try to get close to those ideals. It's who we are when nobody is looking.

I knew she was a political radical, but when you're nineteen that's sexy.

this community would never be what I wanted. Too many other people wanted it to be different things. It would always have to be a compromise between my ideals and theirs.

For every quality in life—goodness, justice, courage, beauty, loyalty—there has to exist a single standard, a model of perfection of which, Socrates says, "all equal objects of sense Ã¢â'¬Â¦ are only imperfect copies.

History teaches us what human beings are like in reality rather than what we would like them to be. And when we deal with the sum total of history's record, high-minded ideals like those of Plato's Philosopher Rulers have to be pushed off over the side. Reality teaches a very different set of lessons about politics—and Machiavelli's ambition was to present them to posterity

the key to happiness is understanding how the real world works. This idea stood in contrast to Plato-inspired utopian dreams, including John Calvin's Geneva (a favorite target in the Enlightenment). Our highest ideals are not reflections of some transcendent reality, Enlightenment thinkers argued, or some higher truth. They are just that, ideals: insubstantial playthings of the mind that can deceive as often as they can inspire.

No hay teoría revolucionaria sin práctica revolucionaria, camarada mayor. —La libertad de lectura es algo tan precioso que debe ser racionada, camarada comisario.

Nos enamoramos, en realidad, de la imagen del amor que tenemos en la cabeza, proyectando ahí los libros leídos, el cine que hemos visto. Incluyendo nuestros sueños, deseos, tristezas y alegrías…

I thought about it all the way home. Of all the things I had wanted to be when i was a little girl, a revolutionary certainly wasn't one of them.

Politics must be the battle of the principles... the principle of liberty against the principle of force.

Some have half-baked ideas because their ideals are not heated up enough.

Ideals may tell us something important about what we would like to be. But compromises tell us who we are.

One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.

I remember fancying myself a junior 'McCainiac' in 2000, though politics were rarely discussed in our household.

I prefer to die rather than eat beef.

Man is ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him.

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.

In the modern era, our nation experienced constant hardship and difficulties. The Chinese nation reached the most dangerous period. Since then, countless people with lofty ideals to realise the great revival of the Chinese nation rose to resist and fight, but failed one time after another.

When you're young, try to be realistic; as you get older, become idealistic. You'll live longer.