For men of action it is the end for which they strive.
The ideal which each man should cultivate and strive after need by no means be a narrow aim.
It is an aspiration of which the loftiness is in no way affected by the lowliness of the means employed to realize it.
This word has too often been misused and exaggerated in the effort to distort it from its philosophical meaning.
In every walk of life, no matter how humble, it is possible to follow an ideal.
It is not an aim, to speak exactly, but still less is it a dream. It is an aspiration toward something better that subordinates all our acts to this one dominant desire.
Every realization tends to the development of the ideal, which is increased in beauty by each partial attainment.
We have just said that the ideal of some men is the acquisition of a fortune. It might be supposed, therefore, that such people, once they have become rich, will abandon their aspirations for something more.
The man who has this idea is very much in the wrong.