Absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds and fanatics. - It is, for scientific folk, an unattainable ideal.
Celebrity is this thing that's unattainable. This unattainable lifestyle. This unattainable social status. But there's nothing more commonplace than dying from hot sauce.
Long ago man formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods... Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself.
I am not arguing for a utopian society; equal opportunity for all, though ideal, is unrealistic.
Omnicompetence,' the ability to obtain whatever one wants or needs, is an unattainable but continuously approachable ideal for all mankind - past, present, and future.
Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
People have a need for certainty - and that need for certainty is in every human being, certainty that you can avoid pain, certainty that you can at least be comfortable. It's a survival instinct.
The fact that my body is presented as an unrealistic ideal of 'beauty' to the world doesn't stop me - or most other models - from feeling unsure about ourselves.
I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God.
There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines.
Scientists do not believe in fundamental and absolute certainties. For the scientist, certainty is never an end, but a search; not the ordering of certainty, but its exploration. For the scientist, certainty represents the highest degree of probability.
Blessed is he who carries within himself a God, an ideal, and who obeys it: ideal of art, ideal of science, ideal of the gospel virtues, therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite.
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
A theory's assumptions always are and ought to be unrealistic. Further, we should attempt to make them more unrealistic in order to increase a theory's fruitfulness.
Set reasonable goals; not something vague and unrealistic like "I want to be super-model skinny." I always had visions of very thin actresses in my mind when I was at the gym and it seemed so unattainable that I would quit any health regimen before it even got off the ground. But when I changed my mindset to focusing on making the healthiest choices possible for myself, it was a lot more realistic, more attainable, and then the results were visible.
One cabbie chastened me by saying that the fashion industry was doing harm to young people, who are trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal. It prompted me to make body image and diversity key issues on 'The Business of Fashion.'