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Perfection Quotes

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Perfection Quotes

“Alas! we know that ideals can never be completely embodied in practice. Ideals must ever lie a great way off--and we will thankfully content ourselves with any not intolerable approximation thereto! Let no man, as Schiller says, too querulously "measure by a scale of perfection the meager product of reality" in this poor world of ours.”

KnowsMenWorldWayRealityLyingPoorPracticeProductsIdealsPerfectionScalesAlasApproximation
Book:On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History
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“Feminism wasn’t supposed to make us miserable. It was supposed to make us free; to give women the power to shape their fortunes and work for a more just world. Today, women have choices that their grandmothers could not have imagined. The challenge lies in recognizing that having choices carries the responsibility to make them wisely, striving not for perfection or the ephemeral all, but for lives and loves that matter.”

WorldGivingMatterTodayLyingChoicesChallengesResponsibilityFeminismShapesPerfectionAnd LoveFortuneStriveMiserableGrandmotherCarrieRecognizingLife And LoveWorld TodayEphemeral
Author:Debora Spar
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“Life and perfection, joy and repose and whatever all the senses desire, lie in the distinguishing spirit, and from it they have everything that they have. Even if the organs lose in power and the life in them decreases in activity, it does not decrease in the distinguishing spirit, from which they receive the same life, when the fault or infirmity is removed.”

IfsDoeJoySpiritLyingDesireLosesActivityPerfectionFaultsSensesOrgansReposeDecreaseInfirmity
Author:Nicholas of Cusa
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“The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul; and it is well known, that while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes.”

WellsSoulReasonLyingDesirePassionSpaceKnownViolenceColdPerfectionOppositesEmbraceExtremesMediocrityWell KnownRulingRapidsRuling Passion
Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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“In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.”

WorldWayArtMatterRealityFormLyingFictionSubjectsHorrorEssentialsCreatingPerfectionBetrayalWorks Of ArtRebelNew WorldCelebrationInfidelityAffirmationUglinessGreat WorkDefianceSubject MatterGrimRetellingTake ControlTransienceTehranInsubordination
Author:Azar Nafisi
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“She is a mortal danger without meaning to be one; she's exquisite without giving ita thought; shes a trap set by nature, a rose in which love lies in ambush! Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She creates grace without movement and makes all divinity fit into her slightest gesture. And neither Venus in her shell, nor Diana striding in the great, blossoming forest, can compare to her when she goes through the streets of paris in her sedan chair.”

GivingLyingKnownGraceStreetsDangerMovementFitPerfectionRoseForestsMortalsCompareParisDivinityChairsGesturesShellsTrapsExquisiteVenusDianaBlossomingHer SmileAmbushLove LiesStreets Of Paris
Author:Edmond Rostand
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“Don't expect me to be perfect. Despite all my lives, I'm still only human. I can't deliver perfection, and I'll only disappoint you. But I want you to know that you are the most important person to me. I'm trying to protect you. Sometimes I screw things up. I may even tell a white lie every now and then. But you have to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

KnowsWantGivingTryingHumansMayPersonsStillsI CanImportantSometimesLyingWhitePerfectDoubtProtectBenefitsPerfectionGive MeDespiteNow And ThenI Want YouScrewsDisappointProtect YouBenefit Of The DoubtImportant PersonMost Important PersonWhite Lie
Author:Kirsten Miller
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“There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?”

MenReasonFormLyingDesireArtistSimpleSeaArmsNeededCreatingPerfectionTasksEternityLongingExcellenceProfoundContraryRanComplexityAttachmentNothingnessForbiddenBosomsSeductiveDeep WithinHardworking
Author:Thomas Mann
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“We should cast aside all childish games that fetter and exhaust body, speech and mind. Stretching out in inconceivable nonaction, in the unstructured matrix, the actuality of emptiness, where the natural perfection of reality lies, we should gaze at the uncontrived sameness of every experience, all conditioning and ambition resolved with finality.”

ShouldMindBodyRealityLyingGamesNaturalMeditationSpeechAmbitionPerfectionCastsEmptinessConditioningStretchingSamenessActualityFettersFinality
Author:Longchenpa
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“What other sport holds out hope of improvement to a man or a woman over fifty? True, the pros begin to falter at around forty, but it is their putting nerves that go, not their swings. For a duffer like [me], the room for improvement is so vast that three lifetimes could be spent roaming the fiarways carving away at it, convinced that perfection lies just over the next rise. And that hope, perhaps, is the kindest bliss of all that golf bestows upon its devotees.”

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Author:John Updike
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“The real question is whether we can learn anything from our experiences upon which we may grow and help others to grow in the likeness and image of God. We know that if we rebel against doing that which is reasonably possible for us, then we will be penalized. And we will be equally penalized if we presume in ourselves a perfection that simply is not there. Apparently, the course of relative humility and progress will have to lie somewhere between these extremes. In our slow progress away from rebellion, true perfection is doubtless several millennia away”

IfsKnowsMayRealHelpingWisdomLyingCoursesGrowsProgressHumilityPerfectionExtremesHelping OthersRebellionRebelRelativeGod ImageReal QuestionsSlow Progress
Author:Bill W.
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“In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building short-hand, which has been carried to such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The object of her lessons is to form the soul.”

MenHas BeensSoulPhilosophyUseHandsFormLyingTimeMy OwnTeachObjectsBuildingLessonsOfficePerfectionWindowSlaveDeeperInventionWarmthPaceSpeakersLowestRapidsTransparentInventorInventingTubesDrudgeryInventions And InventorsInventing Things
Author:Seneca the Younger
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“In his garden every man may be his own artist without apology or explanation. Each within his green enclosure is a creator, and no two shall reach the same conclusion; nor shall we, any more than other creative workers, be ever wholly satisfied with our accomplishment. Ever a season ahead of us floats the vision of perfection and herein lies its perennial charm.”

MenMayArtTwoLyingArtistVisionCreativeDesignGardenPerfectionSeasonsGreenWorkersCreatorEvery ManSatisfiedConclusionAccomplishmentExplanationCharmApologyFloatsCreative WorkEnclosure
Author:Louise Wilder
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“A sweet attractive kind of grace, A full assurance given by looks, Continual comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel books; I trow that countenance cannot lie, Where thoughts are legible in the eye. Was never eye, did see that face, Was never ear, did hear that tongue, Was never mind, did mind his grace, That ever thought the travel long- But eyes, and ears, and ev'ry thought, Were with his sweet perfections caught. [trow; believe or think]”

ThinkingMindBelieveLooksKindLongBookEyeFacesLyingBeliefGivenGraceSweetComfortPerfectionEarsCaughtTongueAttractiveAssuranceCountenance
Author:Mathew Roydon
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