Why should we strive, with cynic frown, to knock their fairy castles down?
—Eliza Cook (1818–89) English Author, Poet
From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love; we build statues of snow, and weep to see them melt.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
she stood up by sitting down. I’m only standing here because of her.
—Rosa Parks (1913–2005) American Civil Rights Leader
A large portion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be.—They create an ideal character the perfections of which compensate in some degree for imperfections of their own.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (1819–86) American Literary Critic
I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves – such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
What we need most, is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real.
—Frederic Henry Hedge
Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive.
—William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008) American Conservative Writer, Commentator
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940) Lithuanian-American Anarchist, Feminist
Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
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 (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
The idealist walks on tiptoe, the materialist on his heels.
—Malcolm de Chazal (1902–81) Mauritian Writer, Painter, Philosopher
Idealist: a cynic in the making.
—Irving Layton (1912–2006) Romanian-born Canadian Poet, Lecturer
All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
Ideality is only the avant-courier of the mind, and where that, in a healthy and normal state goes, I hold it to be a prophecy that realization can follow.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
Nearly all the Escapists in the long past have managed their own budget and their social relations so unsuccessfully that I wouldn’t want them for my landlords, or my bankers, or my neighbors. They were valuable, like powerful stimulants, only when they were left out of the social and industrial routine.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American Civil Rights Leader
All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
All human things do require to have an ideal in them; to have some soul in them.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.
—Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) British Historian
I looked for great men, but all I found were the apes of their ideals.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
—George Carlin (1937–2008) American Stand-Up Comedian
If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Ideals do exist, the rest is just temporary interruption.
—Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American Novelist, Poet, Actress
Every dogma has its day, but ideals are eternal.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one’s own heart—this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal.
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) American Christian Leader, Humanitarian, Writer
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