Ideas and Ideals

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny. – Carl Schurz My work as a scoutmaster is assisting my scouts in proving the ideas, and thus accepting and understanding the ideals, that form the foundation of scouting.

Ideals imposed on us are not as valuable as those we test and accept independently .

Ideals are an ultimate standard of perfection or excellence, something to work towards.

Ideas are an opinion, conviction, or principle.

Ideals are built by learning and testing ideas. Good ideas feed our understanding and understanding builds determination. Good ideas are tested and proved by the refining influence of adversity. Good ideas help us define ideals. The quotations here are painted on the canvas of the speaker’s lives; they speak to us with the authority earned in struggle, testing, experience and achievement. Each one lends definition to those ideals that we ‘choose as our guides’ and follow to our destiny.