Perfection Quotes

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 H. Huxley

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Gustave Flaubert

Trifles go to make perfection, And perfection is no trifle.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.

Leonardo DaVinci, The notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci by Macurdy

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

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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)

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

Saint Thomas Aquinas

The perfection preached in the Gospels never yet built up an empire. Every man of action has a strong dose of egotism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be forgiven him, indeed, they will be regarded as high qualities, if he can make of them the means to achieve great ends.

Charles de Gaulle

History balances the frustration of how far we have to go with the satisfaction of how far we have come. It teaches us tolerance for the human shortcomings and imperfections which are not uniquely of our generation, but of all time.

Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

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

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

Chinese Prove

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

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

E. C. Stedman

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists... in the loved one, perfection.

Sidney Poitie

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

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

It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize our age.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.

Wallace Stevens

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

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

Salvador Dali

Evolution crawls to imperfection. It ends in extinction.

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

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

John Updike

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

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

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

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

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Clu

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)

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

Be intent upon the perfection of the present day.

William Law

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

Eugene Delacroix

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

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