Perfection Quotes

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self - Solicitude is the enemy of well - Being.

John Updike

The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.

Brooks Atkinson

In order to deserve, we must pay our dues and steadily work for perfection. We must relish in struggle, and relinquish pride. We must dispel fear and seek enlightenment. We must shun division and honor love. We must know our hearts and seek to understand others. We must try, live, create, feel, grow and love.

Bryant McGill, Stanford Lectures on Poetry, 1990

I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.

Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Clu

To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good; the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.

Richard Whately

The history of the Victorian Age will never be written we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - Ignorance, which simplifies and clarifies, which selects and omits, with a placid perfection unattainable by the highest art.

Lytton Strachey

Nature has perfection, in order to show that she is the image of God and defects, to show that she is only his image.

Blaise Pascal

Evolution crawls to imperfection. It ends in extinction.

J. Gregory Keyes, "Babylon 5: Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps".

I have seen an end of all perfection but thy commandment is exceeding broad. N. B. This is the origin of the proverb, All good things must come to an end.

Psalms 11996

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

Joseph Addison

The chimerical pursuit of perfection is always linked to some important deficiency, frequently the inability to love.

Bernard Grasset

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine arts; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest to reach true perfection.

E. C. Stedman

Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance, 1994, p. 287

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.

Dr. David M. Burns

Endeavor to be always patient of the faults and imperfections of others for thou has many faults and imperfections of thine own that require forbearance. If thou are not able to make thyself that which thou wishest, how canst thou expect to mold another in conformity to thy will.

Thomas a Kempis

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - Every day begin the task anew.

Saint Francis de Sales

A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections.

Chinese Prove

Have no fear of perfection - - You will never reach it.

Salvador Dali

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr., O Magazine, December 2003

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become toward the defects of others.

Francois Fenelon