Ideal and Virtue
Given the complexity of putting ideals into practice, and resolving conflicts between them, it is not uncommon to see them reduced to dogma. One way to avoid this, according to Bernard Crick, is to have ideals that themselves are descriptive of a process, rather than an outcome. His political virtues try to raise the practical habits useful in resolving disputes into ideals of their own. A virtue, in general, is an ideal that one can make a habit.
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Famous quotes containing the words ideal and, ideal and/or virtue:
“All that is active, all that is enveloped in time and space, is endowed with what might be described as an abstract, ideal and absolute impermeability.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
“Realism absorbs the ideal by adding a few small imperfections. Example: it paints a few specks of mud on the white gown of the Lady in the Garden.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)