Variant translations:
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. (As quoted by Sir William Osler in his introduction to The Life of Pasteur (1907) by Rene Vallery-Radot, as translated by R .L. Devonshire (1923)
Blessed is he who carries within himself a god and an ideal and who obeys it — an ideal of art, of science, or gospel virtues. Therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions; they all reflect light from the Infinite. (As quoted in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1998) by Connie Robertson, p. 320)
Discours de réception de Louis Pasteur (1882)
Original: (fr) La grandeur des actions humaines se mesure à l’inspiration qui les fait naître. Heureux celui qui porte en soi un Dieu, un idéal de la beauté et qui lui obéit : idéal de l’art, idéal de la science, idéal de la patrie, idéal des vertus de l’Évangile! Ce sont là les sources vives des grandes pensées et des grandes actions. Toutes s’éclairent des reflets de l’infini.
“Not all idealism is fake.”
Source: Last Year (2016), Chapter 11 (p. 192)
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Robert Charles Wilson 134
author 1953Related quotes
“All history is man's efforts to realise ideals.”
(5 February 1929).
I'm Glad You Asked Me That (2007)
“All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary.”
"The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" in address to the Yale Philosophical Club, published in the International Journal of Ethics (April 1891) http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/American/mp&ml.htm
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Context: All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience.
“All idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary.”
Source: Ecce Homo, chapter Why I Am So Clever
“All religions fall far short of their own ideals.”
Source: The Denial of Death (1973), The Present Outcome of Psychoanalysis, p. 204
"Aging Rebel: Vladimir Zhirinovsky Is Enjoying Another Moment" in The Moscow Times https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/09/02/aging-rebel-vladimir-zhirinovsky-is-enjoying-another-moment-a55177 (2 September 2016)
“All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.”
Lecture at the Harvard Divinity School (13 March 1884); published in the The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine as The Dilemma of Determinism http://books.google.com/books?id=38DVAAAAMAAJ&q=%22All+our+scientific+and+philosophic+ideals+are+altars+to+unknown+gods%22&pg=PA196#v=onepage (September 1884)
1880s
“Mutual commitment to ideals -- yes; the stifling of all dissenting notions -- no.”
Seventy faces: articles of faith (2002)
“It is vain to try to sacrifice once for all one's youthful ideals.”
The Age for Love
Context: It is vain to try to sacrifice once for all one's youthful ideals. When a man has loved literature as I loved it at twenty, he cannot be satisfied at twenty-six to give up his early passion, even at the bidding of implacable necessity.