“We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.”

Great quote from Angel to his son Connor (Angel, Season 4, Episode 1, “Deep Down“):

Nothing in the world is the way it oughta be. It's harsh…and cruel…but that's why there's us…champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done, or suffered. Or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be. You're not a part of that yet. I hope you will be.

Reminds me of Ayn Rand's “Anyone who fights for the future, lives it in today”¹ and her conception of Romantic Realism in fiction as a portrayal of life “as it could be and should be.”² See, also, my Journal of Libertarian Studies article, “Atlas Shrugged and the Importance of Dramatizing Our Values (pdf).”

1. The Romantic Manifesto, 1975, p. viii ↩

2. Letters of Ayn Rand, 1995, p. 243 ↩