quotations about perfection
From the moment perfection is attained, 'tis gone.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Perfect moments, especially when they verge on the sublime have the grave disadvantage of being very short lived, which in fact, being obvious, we would not need to mention were it not that they have a still greater disadvantage, which is that we do not know what to do once they are over.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Seeing
Perfection bores me, in art, in music; most of all, in people. Luckily, perfection is rare.
VICKI BAUM
I Know What I'm Worth
When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, Vince Lombardi: His Words
Striving to be perfect, to be busy and to be fulfilled is tiring, but it actually serves as a coping mechanism. If you don't have to stop, you stay on the continuum and you remain somewhat numb. It's only when you finally do stop that you actually confront things.
JACQUELINE STONE
"Are you feeling the pressure to live a perfect life?", News Australia, April 16, 2016
The saddest thing in the world was that human beings, for all their ardent striving and desire, could never achieve physical, emotional, or intellectual perfection. The species was doomed to imperfection; it thrashed forever in despair or denial of that fact.
DEAN KOONTZ
Dark Rivers of the Heart
Perfection irritates as well as it attracts, in fiction as in life.
LOUIS AUCHINCLOSS
Pioneers and Caretakers
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
VINCE LOMBARDI
attributed, 101 Reasons to Love the Packers
Perfection is an undiscovered jewel.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
You can't wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.
RAY BRADBURY
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.
SYLVIA PLATH
"The Munich Mannequins", Ariel
Have no fear of perfection -- you'll never reach it.
SALVADOR DALÍ
attributed, "Perfectionism: what's bad about being too good?"
When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.
DONALD MILLER
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Possessing the ideal makes a person nervous: you sense the inevitable decline just ahead.
GARRISON KEILLOR
"The Art of Travel", A Prairie Home Companion, July 28, 2009
Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache.... Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.
GEORGE ORWELL
Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun
What is Perfected hereafter, must be begun here.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.
JEANNETTE WALLS
Half Broke Horses
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
Airman's Odyssey