With the amount of freedom we have we can attain to two hundred ideals in this life, if we will, but we must not degrade the ideal to the actual. One of the most insinuating things comes to us in the shape of persons who apologise for our mistakes and teach us how to make special excuses for all our foolish wants and foolish desires; and we think that their ideal is the only ideal we need have. But it is not so. The Vedanta teaches no such thing. The actual should be reconciled to the ideal, the present life should be made to coincide with life eternal.
- Swami Vivekananda
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Practical Vedanta and other lectures/Practical Vedanta: Part I (Delivered in London, 10th November 1896)
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