Every man, every woman carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.

—Edward Abbey

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — such an ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. …The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.

—Albert Einstein

When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can’t live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.

—Judith Martin

The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.

—Sydney J. Harris

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

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you reach your destiny.

—Carl Schurz

Idealism is what precedes experience, cynicism is what follows.

—David T. Wolfe

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

I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.

—Carl Sandburg

You always need to make ideals clear to yourself. You always have to be aware of them, even if there is no direct path to their realization. Were there no ideals, there would be no hope whatsoever. Then everything would be hopelessness, darkness — a blind alley.

—Dr Andrei Sakharov

[naviga:h2 style="text-align:justify;text-indent:0in;line-height:10.0pt"]Idealists...foolish enough to throw caution to the winds...have advanced mankind and have enriched the world. [naviga:h2 align="right" style="text-align:right;text-indent:0in;line-height:10.0pt"]

–Emma Goldman [naviga:h2 style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:10.0pt"]  [naviga:h2 style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:10.0pt"]Ideals do exist, the rest is just temporary interruption. [naviga:h2 style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:10.0pt"]

                                                                                              –Vanna Bonta