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Perfection Quotes

Browse 2847 quotes about Perfection.

Perfection Quotes

“Our world is not an optimal place, fine tuned by omnipotent forces of selection. It is a quirky mass of imperfections, working well enough (often admirably); a jury-rigged set of adaptations built of curious parts made available by past histories in different contexts. A world optimally adapted to current environments is a world without history, and a world without history might have been created as we find it. History matters; it confounds perfection and proves that current life transformed its own past.”

“In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art , Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community.”

Source: A Susan Sontag reader

“It is not true that the perfection of police power is the result of the state's Machiavellianism or of some transitory influence. The whole structure of society implies it, of necessity. The more we mobilize the forces of nature, the more must we mobilize men and the more do we require order.”

Men States Whole Order Force Results Influence Perfection Police Structure Transitory Forces Of Nature Police Power

Author:Jacques Ellul

“Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.”

Writing Order Force Effects Style Reader Perfection Increase Originals Lenses Brightness Good Writing Sunbeams

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“For, above all, I hold a notion of possibility and necessity according to which there are some things that are possible, but yet not necessary, and which do not really exist. From this it follows that a reason that always forces a free mind to choose one thing over another (whether that reason derives from the perfection of a thing, as it does in God, or from our imperfection) does not eliminate our freedom.”

Mind Doe Reason Force One Thing Possibility Perfection Notion Imperfection

Book:Leibniz: Philosophical Essays

Source: Leibniz: Philosophical Essays

“Soul Gathers Force It is possible, when the future is dim, when our depressed faculties can form no bright ideas of the perfection and happiness of a better world,-it is possible still to cling to the conviction of God's merciful purpose towards His creatures, of His parental goodness even in suffering, still to feel that the path of duty, though trodden with a heavy heart, leads to peace.”

World Feels Heart Stills Ideas Soul Form Purpose Suffering Force Path Duty Creatures Goodness Perfection Conviction Heavy Faculty Merciful Parental Heavy Heart Bright Ideas

Author:William Ellery Channing

“Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.”

Soul Seems Desire Force Fire Example Arms Argument Perfection Direct Passionate Wave Burning Flames Nevertheless Maximum Fervor

Author:Hermann Hesse

“The ballet. I saw in the fugitive beauty of a dancer's gesture a symbol of life. It was achieved at the cost of unending effort but, with all the forces of gravity against it, a fleeting poise in mid-air, a lovely attitude worthy to be made immortal in a bas-relief, it was lost as soon as it was gained and there remained no more than the memory of an exquisite emotion. So life, lived variously and largely, becomes a work of art only when brought to its beautiful conclusion and is reduced to nothingness in the moment when it arrives at perfection.”

“Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitute the life, usefulness, and supreme value of mathematical science.”

Source: What is Mathematics?: An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods

“Integrity requires that I discern what is integral to my selfhood, what fits and what does not-and that I choose life-giving ways of relating to the forces that converge within me: Do I welcome them or fear them, embrace them or reject them, move with them or against them? By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.”

Source: The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life

“[Perfection] is only possible if the mind of man is changed, if he, of his own sweet will, changes his mind; and the great difficulty is, neither can he force his own mind.”

Ifs Men Mind Force Changed Sweet Perfection Difficulty

Book:The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

“If there's any such thing as a perfect man, I think John Coltrane was one. And I think that kind of perfection has to come from a greater force than there is here on earth.”

Ifs Thinking Men Kind Earth Force Perfect Music Greater Perfection Jazz Perfect Man Coltrane

Author:Elvin Jones

“You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them.”

Ideas Matter Force Growth Results Study Successful Perfection Slow Growth

Author:Alexander Graham Bell

“There are some troubles from which mankind can never escape .... have never claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow from authority .... As a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a choice of evils, liberty is the smaller. Then liberty always says the Anarchist. No use of force except against the invader.”

Use Choices Evil Force Results Liberty Greater Trouble Mankind Blessing Authority Perfection Anarchy Anarchist Invaders Use Of Force

Author:Benjamin Tucker

“As long as algebra and geometry have been separated, their progress have been slow and their uses limited; but when these two sciences have been united, they have lent each mutual forces, and have marched together towards perfection.”

Long Has Beens Two Use Together Force United Progress Perfection Mutual Geometry Algebra

Author:Joseph-Louis Lagrange

“The attractive idea that we can now have a parliament of man with authority to control the conduct of nations by legislation or an international police force with power to enforce national conformity to rules of right conduct is a counsel of perfection.”

Men Ideas Force Nations Authority Perfection Police International Attractive Conformity Legislation Parliament Police Force Right Conduct

Book:Addresses on International Subjects

Source: Addresses on International Subjects