Perfection is, therefore, the result of many half successes.

If one could hope to arrive at one stride at one’s desired goal one’s efforts would be of no value, and mediocrity would very soon become the sole characteristic of those who were possest by this idea.  The man who has had the wit to acquire poise will guard himself carefully from falling into the error of the timid, who, haunted by an unappeased longing for perfection, lose their courage at the first attempt.

Does this imply that idealism must be banished from the thoughts of the man of resolution?

Not at all, if by the word ideal one understands what it actually means.

A false meaning has been given to this word which has warped it from its original sense.

The ideal is not, as many people seem to think, an impossible dream indulged in only by poets, and that has no active basis of reality.

Lazy people abuse this word, which to their minds allows them to indulge without shame in idle dreams that foster their indolence.

The timid drape it about themselves like a curtain, behind which they take refuge and in whose shadow they conceal themselves, thinking by so doing to keep the vanity which obsesses them from being wounded.

Devotees of false ideals clothe them too often with the tinsel of fond illusion, under which guise they make a pretense of worshiping them.

The true ideal, that which every man can carry in his heart, is something much more tangible and matter of fact.

For one it is worldly success.

For another renown and glory.

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.

The state of being permanently wealthy is one that opens new horizons, hitherto closed.  The doing of good, charity, the desire to better the condition of those who still have to struggle, these will constitute a higher and a no less attractive ideal.