Enlightenment Ideals Quotes

Education provide enlightenment for one's life. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Philosophy's greatest task is to enlarge our sense of possibility. ~ Susan Neiman

As a graduate student at Oxford in 1963, I began writing about books in revolutionary France, helping to found the discipline of book history. I was in my academic corner writing about Enlightenment ideals when the Internet exploded the world of academic communication in the 1990s. ~ Robert Darnton

Despite hating mobs and technically being a nobleman, Napoleon welcomed the Revolution. At least in its early stages it accorded well with the Enlightenment ideals he had ingested from his reading of Rousseau and Voltaire. ~ Andrew Roberts

We are all equally capable of spiritual awakening. It may not seem that way, at times. Some of us are so caught up in the drama of our day-to-day existence that we have lost track of who we really are. But eventually, all of us will make the discovery of our true nature. ~ Victor Shamas

To realize the Enlightenment ideals of formal equality, the rule of law, freedom of commerce, and religious toleration, Voltaire and many of the other philosophes looked to absolutist monarchs, whose policies they hoped to influence. The support of the philosophes for the expansion of the monarch's sovereign power was tactical. It arose not out of a principled belief in the throne, but out of the recognition that only a strong monarchy had the power to override the resistance to enlightened legislation by the privileged churches, estates, and corporations that made up continental European society. (p. 45) ~ Jerry Z. Muller

Dare to learn.
Dare to relearn.
Dare to outlearn. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The United States is truly remarkable, a nation founded on a set of Enlightenment ideals so beautifully expressed by the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution. We should feel good about our ideals, even when we don't quite manage to live up to them. ~ Jay Parini

Completing our tenure in one body, we enter another, just as one gives up worn clothes and puts on new ones [2.23]. Only an excessively fashion-conscious person anguishes over the loss of a mere shirt or dress. So in illusion, we lose ourselves in grief over the inevitable change of body, forgetting that the body merely garbs an eternal soul. The irony of mundane life is that for all our vanity, we drastically underestimate ourselves. We think ourselves mortal, when we are truly immortal. We endure painful limits to our knowledge and joy, yet as eternal parts of God, Kṛṣṇa, each one of us is entitled to innate and limitless awareness and joy. We need only claim them appropriately [6.20-22] ~ H.D. Goswami

All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans. ~ Billy Bragg

My family life and my ideals, my commitment to the community and to other people - all people - has been improved. I think less about myself and more about my community today. ~ Andre Braugher

The secret to enlightenment is to lighten up. Whether you are talking rock or women, all there. ~ Steven Tyler

The difference between going where you are needed and going where you are called is purely based upon diligent prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit. ~ M.J. Stoddard

In previous ages the word 'art' was used to cover all forms of human skill. The Greeks believed that these skills were given by the gods to man for the purpose of improving the condition of life. In a real sense, photography has fulfilled the Greek ideal of art; it should not only improve the photographer, but also improve the world. ~ David Hurn

Enlightenment occurs when your mind merges with nirvana, with what Tibetans call the Dharmakaya, the clear light of reality, which is the highest plane of transcendental wisdom and perfect understanding. ~ Frederick Lenz

The fact is that all the important political philosophers and scientists from the great Aristotle on, with the exception of those of the French Enlightenment and Mill, have sided with the powers that be. ~ Mario Bunge

It can be made only when one recognizes the ground of being itself, when one recognizes directly that One is All. ~ Amit Goswami

Of people that hold an opinion that is popular and that makes them look good: I cannot take your opinions seriously. If you are of a persuasion that is popular and that makes you look like a better person, then you hold that persuasion as a result of no inner convictions of your own; rather, you hold that persuasion as a result of self-consciousness. It takes courage and inner strength to hold convictions that go against popular opinion and that go against what would make you feel accepted in the eyes of most. There are three levels to this sort of consciousness: the first level dictates that you are simply unaware and you go about with daily life with no presumptions, simply going with the flow of everything. The second level is the one that the current generation mostly belongs to: the level of those who believe themselves to be enlightened, awakened. This second level belongs to those who would call those belonging to the first level as "sheep". This second level belongs to those who would believe that there are only two levels: one belonging to sheep and another belonging to them. They are unaware of the third level. But the third level of consciousness is the level that belongs not to what those on the lesser level would call as "sheep" and also not belonging to the second level of those who believe themselves to be free thinkers. At this third level, are those who see plainly that the free thinkers of today are simply a different herd of sheep, who all hold a shared opi ~ C. JoyBell C.

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon. ~ Virginia Foxx

Innocence is our natural state, before it becomes covered over. What covers it over is self-image. When we look at ourselves, even when we're trying to be completely honest, we see an image built up over many years, in layers that are complexly woven together. The lines and wrinkles that develop in a person's face tell the story of past happiness and sadness, triumph and defeat, ideals and experiences. It is almost impossible to see anything else. ~ Deepak Chopra

My notion of a failed writing workshop is when everybody comes out replicating the teacher and imitating as closely as possible the great original at the head of the table. I think that's a mistake, in obvious opposition to the ideal of teaching which permits a student to be someone other than the teacher ... The successful teacher has to make each of the students a different product rather than the same. ~ Nicholas Delbanco

It might be said that it is the ideal of the employer to have production without employees and the ideal of the employee is to have income without work. ~ E.F. Schumacher

Knowing the Truth is not based on knowledge, but on being "it". ~ Vivian Amis

The prosperity of a country depends, not on the abundance of its revenues, nor on the strength of its fortifications, nor on the beauty of its public buildings; but it consists in the number of its cultivated citizens, in its men of education, enlightenment and character. ~ Martin Luther

The Venezuelan people will never abandon the ideals President Chavez gave us. Modestly, we contribute to ensure the stability of the region. ~ Nicolas Maduro

There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our Puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom. ~ Sherwin Wine

Bringing to light what had been hidden in darkness should not overwhelm you, but EDUCATE you. ~ Solange Nicole

I think we're going to move forward because I think at the end of all of this, everybody is going to ultimately realize that if the Democrat Party that is the most destructive force in this country. It's not one of these Republicans. And they have to be stopped and they have to be stopped in this election if this country is to be restored to its founding principles and the ideals that the majority of Americans associate with this country. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Peace is more than a lofty ideal. It is a practical principle that, with conscious effort, can become a normal part of our lives as we deal with matters both large and small. One habit that prevents inner peace is procrastination. It clutters our minds with unfinished business and makes us uneasy until we finish a task and get it out of the way. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

Essentially, perspective is a form of abstraction. It simplifies the relationship between eye, brain and object. It is an ideal view, imagined as being seen by a one-eyed, motionless person who is clearly detached from what he sees. It makes a God of the spectator, who becomes the person on whom the whole world converges, the Unmoved Onlooker. ~ Robert Hughes

I dislike the word mythology because of its secondary definition meaning "something untrue." Myth is a Greek word that simply means "story," and mythologies are collections of ancient stories explaining the order of the universe or a society's ideals and customs. ~ Alaric Albertsson

You've tapped yourself in some sort of fifth­century religious mania. Since then the Renaissance has happened, the Enlightenment has happened. Where've you been? ~ Carl Sagan

Enlightenment is the culmination of self-knowledge, pure unadulterated knowledge. Not knowledge you can get from reading a book, it comes from perfecting your awareness, your mind. ~ Frederick Lenz

While I think of it, Mr. Werle, junior - don't use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies. ~ Henrik Ibsen

Your ideal possession candidate's a thirteen-year-old recently orphaned schizophrenic girl three days away from her period on her way to see the shrink with whom she's romantically besotted. ~ Glen Duncan

The attainment of enlightenment from ego's point of view is extreme death. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

Of course we're Christian. The very name of the church declares that. The more people see us and come to know us, the more I believe they will come to realize that we are trying to exemplify in our lives and in our living the great ideals which (Jesus Christ) taught. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

prophecy directed at the past, the yearning for ancestors projected into the future – that is Nietzsche's divine feeling of humanity. the mature individual who, conscious of of his responsability, shoulders the entire burden of human tradition, who is the highest point in the arch of the bridge spanning what was and what will be, the divine moment "on the high pass" – like Zarathustra "between two oceans, traveling between the past and the future like a heavy cloud" – that is Nietzsche's man of the future humanity. the poet is, in his view, the creator of the past, the founder of "all that remains". the philosopher, however, and the sage are preachers and seekers of the future: "whoever has became wise reflecting on old origins" Zarathustra says "will eventually look for sources of the future and for new origins". to redeem the Past by interpreting it affirmatively as the cradle of the Future. to work at constructing the future by building a vaulted crypt that will provide a permanent sanctuary for the powers of belief throught centuries – with that, the grand fusion takes place that merges Nietzsche's early "philological" ideals and the Dionysian ecstatic dream of Zarathustra's demanding Will. ~ Ernst Bertram

What the enlightened person sees no one could ever tell or describe. Wonder beyond belief. We live in a universe filled with wonder. It is wonder just to live. ~ Frederick Lenz

In attaining our ideals,our means should be as pure as the end! ~ Rajendra Prasad