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Imperfection Quotes

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Imperfection Quotes

“Vulnerability is our relationship to our weaknesses, not our weaknesses themselves. It's the feeling we have when confronted with our imperfections. The image of being vulnerable is that of taking off our armor, making ourselves available to be intimate, to be touchable. To own your vulnerabilities is a move of trust, a move of solidarity.”

“If we trust that our inner world knows what is needed next, one outcome isn't preferable to another. It is so easy for us to want healing to pursue a more linear path: Something arises and it would be best if we could stay with that. There can be a sense of disappointment in therapist, patient, or both if the sensation doesn't return. This might be perceived as a lack in our patient's ability to maintain contact, a reflection of our inadequacy of a therapist, or simply discomfort that the therapy feels stuck.”

“YOU ARE JUST You are not just for the right or left, but for what is right over the wrong. You are not just rich or poor, but always wealthy in the mind and heart. You are not perfect, but flawed. You are flawed, but you are just. You may just be conscious human, but you are also a magnificent reflection of God.”

“Like a Columbus of the heart, mind and soul I have hurled myself off the shores of my own fears and limiting beliefs to venture far out into the uncharted territories of my inner truth, in search of what it means to be genuine and at peace with who I really am. I have abandoned the masquerade of living up to the expectations of others and explored the new horizons of what it means to be truly and completely me, in all my amazing imperfection and most splendid insecurity.”

“Flawed, imperfect, fallen. If these things describe me accurately—it should be evident to my friends that they do—then it should be obvious that I need to change. If I insist on remaining just as I am; if I demand acceptance without judgment—or worse, if I also demand that my friends validate my present state and declare it good, then I am asking them to aid and abet my damnation. Just as flowing water is stopped by a dam, I will be condemned to my present state. But that is not what I want. I deeply desire to correct my flaws, put right my imperfections, and overcome my fallenness. I cannot make these changes on my own. Without forthright friends who help me see myself accurately, I am lost. My best friends, therefore, are the ones who see me clearly and love me enough to tell me that I can become better. My best friends are the ones who point me to Christ, He who is mighty to save and Best Friend to all who will have Him.”

“Fighting the desire inside her and becoming friends, only friends, had been painful at first, yet she had done it for Lyric. She had repeated to herself a mantra. It’s not about me, it’s not about me. Not about what she wanted, but what Lyric needed. She had a responsibility to this little one to do more than feed and clothe her, but to show her that she wasn’t alone in the world. That she had a team, people who put her joy first. If it meant she and Stuart had to put their happiness on the shelf, so be it. Until she realized how it had set them free. Friends are not perfect and tidy and forever poised. Friends, true friends, can come to each other with their frayed edges and belly laughs.”

“The walk across the street can seem long, like walking across town. Grown-ups with real magic sometimes seem very ordinary. If you know of anyone who is a really good person, they will probably seem imperfect when you talk to them. The best drawings are simple. Special things can seem plain. The voyage to the sun is inside you.”

“I am not perfect, but if I looked perfect to everyone I must have been rocking imperfect perfectly to a few imperfect souls that seek imperfection vs. perfection, in an imperfect world where God asks us to seek perfection for our imperfect souls.”

“The depths of her thoughts will have you never wanting to surface for air...”

“A principle is the expression of perfection. Imperfect beings like us cannot practice perfection. I shall allow for error in judgment by seeking counsel from all sources of knowledge. Failing is critical for self-growth because it causes a principled person to think. A person’s greatest failures are their portals to discovery. The mind is a fire that a person must kindle; a person must seek constant development in order to stave off intellectual, spiritual, and moral morbidity. A person cannot apply any principle to guide human behavior without testing its concept against present realities or it will result in absurdities.”

“I don’t even believe that Jesus Christ himself was perfect. To be human IS TO BE imperfect. Ultimately, the difference between an asshole or a benevolent being is the choice of serving by building bridges between yourself and another person. Do you apologize or do you offend? Do you listen or do you ignore? Do you accept or do you defame? I would rather know the truth about an idol — or person — rather than believe in a lie that an IDOL is a walking Christ on earth. No one is perfect.”

“I live with the hope that one day, someone, will look into my eyes and see the deepness of my soul, and all the suffering and struggles will finally make sense to the person that can see behind all the imperfections and dust that's been pilled up in all these years. I've had my turns at trying to love people, but it never turned out as planned and I've failed in keeping someone next to me, simply because you can't force someone to be by your side if it's not meant to be, and I've grown to accept that and not fight against it. I've been selfish for far too long in trying to cling on to someone, and I believe nobody is perfect.. But as long as I still breathe, I'm willing to let people come into my life, play their part in my life's plan and then let go if it's necessary. Nothing can last forever and it's something we grow to accept. Let time do its' thing and don't get too attached, that's all I can do.”

“You may not understand issues that do not pertain to the heart, but be a master in areas that do. Nobody knows everything, and nobody can be a master of everything. Nobody was created perfect, and nobody should be measured according to perfection. It is the weight of your heart that matters the most in the end. All else is irrelevant.”

“Fantasy like thought that no man could rain Just let her reign Run wild with her unafraid Of any rain storms They only wash the mud away and make way For double rainbows and sunny days”

“...I fell asleep and had a dream that a king was liquidated by a group of kind faces...”

“[These] powerful women understood that success in imperfect. What would happen if we all started speaking honestly and openly about our priorities and the choices we make about how we spend our time? How inspiring would it be to the young women in our offices if they saw female executives who don't pretend to do it all, but are open and honest about the balls they have dropped to get where they are today? Women need to support one another by being honest about the compromises we make and by speaking openly about the help we require from our partners and other support systems.”

“Tell me something. Do you believe in God?' Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?' 'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?' 'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...' 'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.' Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks: 'There was Manicheanism...' 'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...' Snow pondered for a while: 'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.' I kept on: 'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...' 'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.' 'If you're going to take what I say literally...' ...Snow asked abruptly: 'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?' 'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.”

“I’m not surprised that in a time of hideous precarity so many of us would find ourselves tempted by the false grandiosities of certainty. But we must not confuse certainty with safety — in fact, certainty is the end of the imagination and therefore the definition of unsafety. Nor should we confuse unknowing with ignorance. To unknow is to admit limits, to acknowledge that others might have answers you lack, to recognize our exquisite interdependence as people, and best of all to seek within. To dwell in unknowing is to put your phone away and be for a brief moment completely, imperfectly, human. In times like ours unknowing is excellent proof against our society’s inhumanity, against the lizard supremacy of certainty. There is wisdom in the question deferred, the question without an immediate answer. Tolerance and unity, too. And art, as well, if we can tolerate the fact that we are all forever a question without answers, a beautiful unknown, an infinite unknowing.”

“To the possible objection that thus the world would of necessity have long ago turned into a paradise, it is easy to reply: Many substances already may have attained great perfection; yet, the continuum being infinitely divisible, there will always remain in the unfathomable depth of the universe some somnolent elements which are still to be awakened, developed, and improved - in a word, promoted to higher culture. This is why the end of progress can never be attained.”

“The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why there is imperfection, or in other words, why there is creation at all. We must take it for granted that it could not be otherwise, that creation must be imperfect, must be gradual, and that it is futile to ask the question, ‘Why are we?’ But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this imperfection the final truth? Is evil absolute and ultimate? The river has its boundaries, its bank, but is a river all banks or are the banks the final facts about the river? Do not these obstructions themselves give its water an onward motion? The towing rope binds a boat, but is bondage its meaning? Does it not at the same time draw the boat forward? The current of the world has its boundaries, otherwise it could have no existence, but its purpose is not shown in the boundaries which restrain it, but in its movement which is towards perfection. The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order, beauty and joy, goodness and love. The idea of God that man has in his being is the wonder of all wonders. He has felt in the depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the manifestation of the perfect. Just as a man who has an ear for music realises the perfection of a song, while in fact he is only listening to a succession of notes. Man has found out the great paradox that what is limited is not imprisoned within its limits; it is ever moving, and therewith shedding its finitude every moment. In fact, imperfection is not a negation of perfectness. Finitude is not contradictory to the infinity. They are but completeness manifested in parts; infinity revealed within bounds.”

“Wisdom increases and is a burden. I know too many people and why I should love them, and the thought that I love them imperfectly is a constant vexation. My half-life continues. The great error of the American condition: to forget that people are humanity--I don't mean in the cliche sense--but are a part of the whole stream of history, and, whatever else they may be in the Here and Now, should be respected and considered, and loved as far as possible and not thought of as students, colleagues, anonymous neighbors.”