Ideal Standards Quotes

Should, is the worst word in the English language. People always think things "should" be a certain way, and when they're not, they're disappointed.

It is one of the most effective attitudes of the neurotic to measure thumbs down, so to speak, a real person by an ideal, since in doing so he can depreciate him as much as he wishes.

Antiessentialist thinking forces us to view the world differently. We must accept shadings and continua as fundamental. We lose criteria for judgment by comparison to some ideal: short people, retarded people, people of other beliefs, colors, and religions are people of full status.

To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.

Perfect people don't drink, don't fight, don't lie, don't make mistakes and...don't exist

The higher the love, the more demands will be made on us to conform to that ideal.

In short, if we adhere to the standard of perfection in all our endeavors, we are left with nothing but mathematics and the White Album.

The only ideals allowed are healthy ones - those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.

And I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

I don't think it makes sense to set high goals about how my ideal woman should be. It is like calling for trouble. That would make one close-minded and not open to meeting different kinds of people.

Heavens! whatever possesses us, here below, that we mutually torment ourselves, sourly reproach our mutual faults, and mercilessly condemn all that is not cut according to our pattern?