The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
  What's Wrong with the World, ch.1,'The Unfinished Temple'.

Soy el cantor deAme¤  rica auto¤  ctono y salvaje; mi lira tiene un alma, mi canto un ideal. Mi verso no se mece colgado de un ramaje con un vaive¤  n pausado de hamaca tropical. I am the aboriginal and savage singer of America; my lyre has a soul, my song has an ideal. My poetry does not swing from the branches with the slow movement of a tropical hammock.

-Ch'in Chia   c.150
  Alma  Ame¤  rica,'Blaso¤   n' (translated as'Blazon',1935).

'Mindandmatter,'saidthelady inthewig,'glideswift into the vortex of immensity. Howls the sublime, and softly sleeps the calm Ideal, in the whispering chambers of Imagination.'

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^4  A Transcendental literary lady. Martin Chuzzlewit, ch.34.

To do nothing and get something, formed a boy's ideal of a manly career.

-Disraeli, Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
  Sybil, bk.1, ch.5.

All the ills of mankind spring from belonging to a race, a nation, a city, a group of some kind. The ideal would be to belong to none, and to care for allöbut who is capable of that?

-Dudek, Louis
Collected in Notebooks1960^1994 (1994).

To be an American is an ideal, whileto be a Frenchman is a fact.

-Friedrich, Carl J(oachim)
  In Time, 9 Nov.

We are nearer today to the ideal of the abolition of poverty and fear from the lives of men and women than ever before in any land.

-Hoover, Herbert Clark
  Presidential campaign speech, 22 Oct.

Morality which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil.

-Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)
  Fantasia of the Unconscious, ch.7.

Conservative ideal of freedom and progress: everyone to have an unfettered opportunity of remaining exactly where they are.

-Madan, Geoffrey
Collected in Geoffrey Madan's Notebooks (published1981).

During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideals of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hopeto live for, and toseerealized.But My Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

-Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla
  Speech in court, 20  Apr, when charged under the Suppression of Communism  Act and facing the death penalty.

I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on. I know not why it should be a matter of congratulation that persons who are already richer than any one needs to be, should have doubled their means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as representative of wealth.

-Mill,John Stuart
  Principles of Political Economy, with Some Applications to Social Philosophy.

It was an ideal day for footballötoo cold for the spectators and too cold for the players.

-Smith, Red
  Reporting on a match between the Chicago Bears and the NewYork Giants.

Freedom is not an ideal; it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than the freedom to stagnate.

-Stevenson, Adlai E(wing)
  Putting FirstThings First.

An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband.

-Tarkington, (Newton) Booth
  Looking Forward And Others,'The Hopeful Pessimist'.

   Religion issomething which stands beyond, behind, and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.

-Whitehead, Alfred North
  Science and the ModernWorld.