IDEAL IDEALS
this means that the ideals must be substantially or at
least measurably realizable. (1918.) Mem. Ed. XXI,
346; Nat. Ed. XIX, 316.
IDEALISTS — RESPONSIBILITY OF. There can
be nothing worse for the community than to have the
men who profess lofty ideals show themselves so
foolish, so narrow, so impracticable, as to cut
themselves off from communion with the men who are
actually able to do the work of governing, the work of
business, the work of the professions. It is a sad and
evil thing if the men with a moral sense group
themselves as impractical zealots, while the men of
action gradually grow to discard and laugh at all moral
sense as an evidence of impractical weakness. (At
Harvard University, Cambridge, June 28, 1905.) Mem.
Ed. XVIII, 441; Nat. Ed. XVI, 328.
IDEALS. Be practical as well as generous in your
ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to
keep your feet on the ground. Be truthful; a lie implies
fear, vanity, or malevolence; be frank; furtiveness and
insincerity are faults incompatible with true manliness.
Be honest, and remember that honesty counts for
nothing unless back of it lie courage and efficiency. If
in this country we ever have to face a state of things in
which on one side stand the men of high ideals who are
honest, good, well-meaning, pleasant people, utterly
unable to put those ideals into shape in the rough field
of practical life, while on the other side are grouped the
strong, powerful, efficient men with no ideals: then the
end of the Republic will be near. (At Groton School,
Groton, Mass., May 24, 1904. ) Mem. Ed. XV, 480;
Nat. Ed. XIII, 557.
____________. Our ideals should be high, and yet they
should be capable of achievement in practical fashion;
and we are as little to be excused if we permit our ideals
to be tainted with what is sordid and mean and base, as
if we allow our power of achievement to atrophy and
become either incapable of effort or capable only of
such fantastic effort as to accomplish nothing of
permanent good. The true doctrine to preach to this
nation, as to the individuals composing this nation, is
not the life of ease, but the life of effort. If it were in my
power to promise the people of this land anything, I
would not promise them pleasure. I would promise
them that stern happiness which comes from the sense
of having done in practical fashion a difficult work
which was worth doing. (At Pilgrim Memorial
Monument, Provincetown, Mass., August 20, 1907.)
Mem. Ed. XVIII, 92-93; Nat. Ed. XVI, 78.
and the practical. If a man does not have an ideal and
try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and
sordid creature, no matter how successful. If, on the
other hand, he does not work practically, with the
knowledge that he is in the world of actual men and
must get results, he becomes a worthless head-in-the-air
creature, a nuisance to himself and to everybody else.
(To Kermit Roosevelt, January 27, 1915.) Mem. Ed.
XXIV, 419; Bishop II, 356.
IDEAL. See also COMPROMISE; PRACTICALITY.
IDEALISM—NEED OF. Surely all of us . . . ought to
realize the need in this country of a loftier idealism than
we have had in the past; and the further and even
greater need that we should in actual practice live up to
the ideals we profess. The things of the body have a
rightful place and a great place. But the things of the
soul should have an even greater place. There has been
in the past in this country far too much of that gross
materialism which, in the end, eats like an acid into all
the finer qualities of our souls. (Metropolitan,
November 1918.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 272; Nat. Ed. XIX,
252.
IDEALISM—PLEA FOR. When I speak of lofty
idealism, I mean ideals to be realized. I abhor that mock
idealism which finds expression only in phrase and
vanishes when the phrase has been uttered. I am
speaking of the idealism which will permit no man in
public or private to say anything lofty as a cloak for
base action. I am asking for the idealism which will
demand that every promise expressed or implied be
kept, that every profession of decency, of devotion that
is lofty in words, should be made good by deeds. I am
asking for an idealism which shall find expression
beside the hearthstone and in the family and in the
councils of the state and the nation, and I ask you men
in this great crisis, and I ask you women who have now
come into the political arena, to stand shoulder to
shoulder with your husbands and brothers and sons. I
ask you to see that when those who have gone abroad to
endure every species of hardship, to risk their lives, to
give their lives, when those of them who live come
home, that they shall come home to a nation which they
can be proud to have fought for or could be proud to
have died for. (At Saratoga, N. Y., July 17, 1918.)
Mem. Ed. XXIV, 529; Bishop II, 452.
IDEALISM, APPLIED. The only idealism worth
considering in the workaday business of this world is
applied idealism. This is merely another way of saying
that permanent good to humanity is most apt to come
from actually trying to reduce ideals to practice, and
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