#ideals

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#marriage #reality #love

If you have realistic ideals and can generally live up to them, your self-esteem will not be threatened. If your ideals are exaggerated and you cannot reach them, your good feelings from successes may be short lived, and you may feel that you are never good enough. The continued hope for the impossible, the expectation that you will or can be unconditionally loved and adored, is not facing reality but rather holding onto an idealized image of yourself and an idealized version of what others can provide. If this is the case, your sense of self may be threatened by shame and its resulting depression, or by feelings of inadequacy for not living up to your unrealistic ideals. A better understanding of shame may help you recognize your tendency to hide what you feel from yourself and others. ↗

— Mary C. Lamia

#ideals #self-esteem #shame #unconditional-love #love

The scepticism which men affect towards their higher inspirations is often not an honest doubt, but a guilty negligence, and is a sign of narrow mind and defective wisdom. ↗

— James Martineau

#negligence #philosophy #religion #wisdom #inspirational

The horrors of the Second World War, the chilling winds of the Cold War and the crushing weight of the Iron Curtain are little more than fading memories. Ideals that once commanded great loyalty are now taken for granted. ↗

— Jan Peter Balkenende

#cold #cold war #commanded #crushing #curtain

As a result of America's efforts to realize the ideals of equality and freedom, blacks in America are now the freest and richest black people anywhere on the face of the earth including all of the nations that are ruled by blacks. ↗

— David Horowitz

#anywhere #black #blacks #earth #efforts

You will put on a dress of guilt and shoes with broken high ideals. ↗

— Roger McGough

#dress #guilt #high #ideals #put

We are all inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their acts. ↗

— Harold Nicolson

#ideals #inclined #judge #others #our

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements. ↗

— Agnes Repplier

#between #contrast #democracy #forever #heroic

They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#idealism #ideals #politics #pragmatism #faith

So from now on, screw "perfect." Forget for a while about what kind of person you want to be, and just be the best version of the person you are. Figure out which of your classmates you genuinely like (not who you want to like you), and get to know them by telling your own stories and listening to theirs. Hang out with the people you think are cool, not the people you'd like to be considered cool by. Do things because they interest you, not because they make you look interesting... and then, take stock in a month and see whether you're not happier, healthier, and working on some actual friendships with other imperfect-but-lovely humans. ↗

— Kat Rosenfield

#ideals #perfection #friendship