If you don’t have the highest ambitions, you will never achieve anything great. If you’re realistic rather than idealistic, you will inevitably accept failure because failure is always the realistic outcome of any undertaking. Samuel Beckett said, Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. That’s idealistic, not realistic. The realist would just give up. Illuminism is about aiming for the highest heights. If you prefer the plains, the lows, the average, the ordinary, the banal, the bland, the uncommitted, the neutral, the self-interested, the realistic, Illuminism is not for you. Richard Dawkins: The Pope of Unreason