IDEALS IDEALS
____________. If this nation has not the right kind of
ideal in every walk of life, if we have not in our souls
the capacity for idealism, the power to strive after
ideals, then we are gone. No nation ever amounted to
anything if it did not have within its soul the power of
fealty to a lofty ideal. (At Pacific Theological
Seminary, Spring, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XV, 589; Nat. Ed.
XIII, 627.
IDEALS—ATTAINMENT OF. We must realize, on
the one hand, that we can do little if we do not set
ourselves a high ideal, and, on the other, that we will
fail in accomplishing even this little if we do not work
through practical methods and with a readiness to face
life as it is, and not as we think it ought to be.
(Inaugural Address as Governor, Albany, January 2,
1899.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 4; Nat. Ed. XV, 4.
IDEALS—DEVOTION TO. We must not prove false
to the memories of the nation's past. we must not prove
false to the fathers from whose loins we sprang, and to
their fathers, the stern men who dared greatly and
risked all things that freedom should hold aloft an
undimmed torch in this wide land. They held their
worldly well-being as dust in the balance when weighed
against their sense of high duty, their fealty to lofty
ideals. Let us show ourselves worthy to be their sons.
Let us care, as is right, for the things of the body; but let
us show that we care even more for the things of the
soul. Stout of heart, and pledged to the valor of
righteousness, let us stand four-square to the winds of
destiny, from whatever corner of the world they blow.
(1916.) Mem. Ed. XX, 262; Nat. Ed. XVIII, 225.
IDEALS, REALIZABLE. If there is one thing with
which I have no sympathy, it is with the type of oration
very frequently delivered to graduating classes,
sometimes, I regret to say, delivered from pulpits,
which preaches an ideal so fantastic that those listening
listen with a merely intellectual pleasure, and without
the slightest intention of trying in real life to realize it.
To preach an ideal like that does not do good; it does
harm; for it is an evil thing to teach people that precept
and practice have no close relation. The moment that
any person grows to believe that the abstract conception
of conduct is not in any real way to be approached in
actual life, that person has received serious harm. . . . I
want you to have ideals that you can achieve, and yet
ideals that shall mean on your part a steady spiritual life
within you if you try to reach them. I want you to have
your eyes on the stars, but remember that your feet are
on the ground; and never to let yourselves get into the
frame of mind which accepts the abstract deification of
certain attributes in theory as an excuse for falling far
short in actual life of what you can actually accomplish.
(At Commencement of National Cathedral School,
Washington, D. C., June 6, 1906.) Presidential
Addresses and State Papers V, 776-777.
____________. If we consciously or carelessly preach
ideals which cannot be realized and which we do not
intend to have realized, then so far from accomplishing
a worthy purpose we actually tend to weaken the
morality we ostensibly preach. . . .
Harm is always done by preaching an ideal which
the preacher and the hearer know cannot be followed,
which they know it is not intended to have followed; for
then the hearer confounds all ideals with the false ideal
to which he is listening; and because he finds that he is
not expected to live up to the doctrine to which he has
listened he concludes that it is needless to live up to any
doctrine at all.
Now I do not mean for a moment that the ideal
preached should be a low one; I do not mean for a
moment that it is ever possible entirely to realize even
for the very best man or woman the loftiest ideal; but I
do mean that the ideal should not be preached except
with sincerity, and that it should be preached in such a
fashion as to make it possible measurably to approach
it. (At Pacific Theological Seminary, Spring 1911.)
Mem. Ed. XV, 575, 577; Nat. Ed. XIII, 615, 616.
____________. The vital thing for the nation no less
than the individual to remember is that, while dreaming
and talking both have their uses, these uses must chiefly
exist in seeing the dream realized and the talk turned
into action. It is well that there should be some ideals so
high as never to be wholly possible of realization; but
unless there is a sincere effort measurably to realize
them, glittering talk about them represents merely a
kind of self-indulgence which ultimately means atrophy
of will power. Ideals that are so lofty as always to be
unrealizable, have a place, sometimes an exceedingly
important place, in the history of mankind, if the
attempt partially to realize them is made; but in the long
run what most helps forward the common run of
IDEALS—ADHERENCE TO. When questions
involve deep and far-reaching principles, then I believe
that the real expediency is to be found in
straightforward and unflinching adherence to principle,
and this without regard to what may be the temporary
effect. (To Baron d'Estournelles de Constant,
September 1, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 290; Bishop I,
252.
humanity
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