Perfection Quotes

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

Michelangelo Buonarroti

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.

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

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

My life is music. And in some vague, mysterious, and subconscious way, I have always been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach for perfection in music, often - - In fact, mostly - - At the expense of everything else in my life.

Stan Getz

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

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

Saint Augustine

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

Salvador Dali

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 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

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

W. Somerset Maugham

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

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

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

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

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Gustave Flaubert

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".

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

Harriet Braike