#ideal

Weak? Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak? Do you really think, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not-there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, terrible courage. I had that courage. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#oscar-wilde #courage

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him! ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#idealism #maturity #dreams

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#idealism #idealist #food

Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy. ↗

— Kazuo Ishiguro

#conflict #enlightenment #family #harmony #idealism

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#ideals #ideas #peace #resolve #values

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#cooking #fragrance #humor #idealism #metaphors

He who does not believe has no soul. He is empty. He has no ideals. He has nothing to live for. He has no sunshine, no light, no joy in life. He is a poor, poor man. ↗

— Robert Ley

#does #empty #ideals #joy #life

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#case #either #expense #idealism #in other words

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong. ↗

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

#except #ideal #ideals #matter #nothing

It was an ideal day for football - too cold for the spectators and too cold for the players. ↗

— Red Smith

#day #football #ideal #players #spectators