A Quote by George Santayana

An ideal cannot wait for its realization to prove its validity.

George Santayana

Quote Topics

Cannot Ideal Prove Prove It Realization Validity Wait

Quote Author

George Santayana
Spanish - Novelist
December 16, 1863 - September 26, 1952

Set-backs in efforts to implement an ideal do not prove that the ideal is wrong...

Dag Hammarskjold

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realise their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself.

Oscar Wilde

Skeptics question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it.

Michael Shermer

To think that practice and realization are not one is a heretical view. In the Buddha Dharma, practice and realization are identical. Because one's present practice is practice in realization, one's initial negotiating of the Way in itself is the whole of original realization. Thus, even while directed to practice, one is told not to anticipate a realization apart from practice, because practice points directly to original realization.

Masao Abe

A steady diet of the higher truths might prove exhausting, but it's important that we acknowledge their validity and celebrate their survival.

Robert Gottlieb

It isn’t necessary to know exactly how your ideal life will look; you only have to know what feels better and what feels worse…Begin making choices based on what makes you feel freer and happier, rather than on how you think an ideal life should look. It’s the process of feeling our way toward happiness, not the realization of the Platonic ideal, that creates our best lives.

Martha Beck

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.

Earl Nightingale

Wait on God and He will work, but don't wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told.

Oswald Chambers

Surfing teaches patience . On land, surfers cannot will a swell to appear. They have to wait for nature to make the call. So surfers wait . They keep their eyes on the horizon and they wait.

Shaun Tomson

The good news is, we have everything we need now to respond to the challenge of global warming. We have all the technologies we need, more are being developed.... But we should not wait, we cannot wait, we must not wait.

Al Gore

Today, Iraq is an immediate danger to our nation. This time, we cannot wait. We cannot wait for Saddam Hussein to take a devastating action or to transfer a weapon of mass destruction to someone else who will. After September 11th, it is simply no longer an option to sit back and contemplate an enemy - one with a stated intent to harm us, a track record and the means, and just wait for him to strike in order to protect ourselves.

Richard Armitage

An ideal sanctified by the sacrifices of such master spirits as Lenin cannot go in vain, the noble example of their renunciation will be emblazoned for ever and quicken and purify the ideal as time passes.

Mahatma Gandhi

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

Bertrand Russell

The charge that the construction of the geologic scale involves circularity has a certain amount of validity. ...Thus, the procedure is far from ideal and the geologic ranges are constantly being revised (usually extended) as new occurrences are found.

David M. Raup

For most women being other-directed, focused on how other people feel and nurturing them, was (and can still be) a quality that girls were (are) heavily pressured to become. The unselfish or Self-less woman was (is) seen as ideal. The realization and articulation that the cultural ideal of the perfect woman was someone who had no sense of Self and was a key part of the angry energy that drove Feminism to its swift success.