Perfection Quotes

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.

W. Somerset Maugham

While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at.

Oscar Wilde

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.

Samuel McChord Crothers

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

It is easy to be a moral perfectionist when one is politically unaccountable.

Robert D. Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (Book)

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

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.

William Faulkne

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

The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consists in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

Logan Pearsall Smith

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.

Dr. David M. Burns

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.

William Law

Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

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, Eminent Victorians (1918)

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint - Exupery

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

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

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece Ver. 124

Perfection is a road, not a destination. Every time I live, I get an education.

Burk Hudson

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

E. C. Stedman

It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodelling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the directions of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward.

Thomas Huxley

Perfection can be achieved by no one, because perfection is achieved from faults - Yet faults tear away the perfection in you.

Mary Ross

Evolution crawls to imperfection. It ends in extinction.

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

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

Salvador Dali

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfection.

Saint Augustine

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

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

Bernard Grasset

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

Wallace Stevens

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

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Gustave Flaubert

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

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

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

Kahlil Gibran

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.

Dr. David M. Burns

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.

Harriet Braike

Truth is so great a perfection, that if God would render himself visible to men, he would choose light for his body and truth for his soul.

Pythagorus

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

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