A Quote by Zbigniew Brzezinski
The president has to project to the American people a sense of demanding idealism. Idealism which is not based in self-indulgence, but on self-denial and sacrifice, and on this such an America is going to be credible to the world.
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Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.
Our German language has a word which in a magnificent way denotes conduct based on this spirit: doing one's duty [Pflichterfüllung]-which means serving the community instead of contenting oneself. We have a word for the basic disposition which underlies conduct of this kind in contrast to egoism and selfishness-idealism. By 'idealism' we mean only the ability of the individual to sacrifice himself for the whole, for his fellow men.
Inevitably out of the psychedelic experience emerges not despair, not self-indulgence, but wild-eyed idealism, that's the inevitable product of any psychedelically driven social process.
There's nothing wrong with being proud of America, believing that America can do great things. America can do great things, it has done great things. I think we have to have the self-awareness to recognize that the world is a very, very big place, that we could be a force for good things in the world, but we have to have the humility to recognize that sometimes even when we think we're acting from the best of motives our own idealism can be infected by self-interest. Other people in other countries can see it sometimes better than we can.
In our age, self-indulgence and self-destruction, rather than self-sacrifice, are the foundations for new heroic myths.
The natural idealism of youth is an idealism, alas, for which we do not always provide as many outlets as we should.
Individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursue selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification.
The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.
Self-denial is simply a method by which arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation of the savage.
Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense.
Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.
It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else.
Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.
Youth is a period of idealism. The Communists attract young people by appealing directly to that idealism. Too often, others have failed either to appeal to it or to use it and they are the losers as a consequence. We have no cause to complain if, having neglected the idealism of youth, we see others come along, take it, and harness it to their cause - and against our own.
The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.
The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome.
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