Selected perfection quotes

1. The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority.

2. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

3. Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.

4. Earth's noblest thing,-a woman perfected.

5. Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.

6. It really sucks when music is so perfect you just don't need to hear it anymore.

7. That soul that can Be honest is the only perfect man.

8. A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.

9. Every once in a while someone without a single bad habit gets caught.

10. New York is the perfect model of a city, not the model of a perfect city.

11. The perfection of any matter, the highest or the lowest, touches on the divine.

12. I looked for perfection, and I found something better.

13. A dewdrop is a perfect integrity that has no filial memory of its parentage.

14. The potentiality of perfection outweighs actual contradictions... Existence in itself is here to prove that it cannot be an evil.

15. A poem is, so to speak, a way of making you forget how you wrote it.

16. I don't believe in perfection. I don't think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.

17. Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there's nothing there, how can anything go wrong?

18. I never made a film which fully satisfied me.

19. Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.

20. So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

21. All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.

22. 'I don't like the way my teeth protrude. I'm going to have them done, but I just haven't had the time. Apart from that... I'm perfect.'

23. The one infinite is perfect, in simplicity, of itself, absolutely, nor can aught be greater or better, This is the one Whole, God, universal Nature, occupying all space, of whom naught but infinity can give the perfect image or semblance.

24. The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: There is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate - each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other.

25. Forgive me, giver, if I destroy the gift. It is so nearly what would please me I cannot but perfect it.

26. I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is:the higher achievement.

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

28. The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work, And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

29. But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.

30. 'I don't take gifts from perfect strangers - but then, nobody is perfect.'

31. The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

32. I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices.

33. Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.

34. The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.

35. The pursuit of the perfect, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.

36. The conceptions which any nation or individual entertains of the God of its popular worship may be inferred from their own actions and opinions, which are the subjects of their approbation among their fellow-men. Jesus Christ instructed his disciples to be perfect, as their Father in Heaven is perfect, declaring at the same time his belief that human perfection requires the refraining from revenge and retribution in any of its various shapes.

37. An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it - neither higher nor lower. [p.240]

38. Perfection is always infinite. We are the Infinite already.You and I, and all beings, are trying to manifest that infinity.

39. ...There will be a 'Oops 100.' They'll be plenty more oopses. I'm not perfect. I'm human.

40. There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father

41. In art the best is good enough.

42. In beauty faults conspicuous grow; The smallest speck is seen on snow.

43. I think Polanski is one of the few filmmakers who nearly did a perfect film, a couple of them. Chinatown is almost perfect. It may be perfect. (2004)

44. When I see people with perfect teeth, it drives me up the wall. I'd rather swallow a tick than have that! (1995)

45. Liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.

46. Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.

47. Transparent, weightless, luminous/ Uncovering the two of us/ On that fundamental ground/ Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound/ And half the perfect world is found.'

48. The very pink of perfection.

49. Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.

50. It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

51. Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.

52. Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.

53. Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

54. So, take, and use thy work: Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

55. The chief reason for going to school is to get the impression fixed for life that there is a book side for everything.

56. I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it's a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.

57. The corollary is that no writer will take all of his or her editor's advice; for all have sinned and fallen short of editorial perfection. Put another way, to write is human, to edit is divine.

58. Listening to Mozart, we cannot think of any possible improvement.

59. ...The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection.

60. Mozart never did too little and never too much; he always attains but never exceeds his goal. ~ Franz Grillparzer

61. The best of Mozart's works cannot be even slightly rewritten without diminishment. ~ Peter Shaffer

62. Mozart touched no problem without solving it to perfection. ~ Donald Francis Tovey

63. If any fault had to be found in Mozart, it could surely be only this: that such abundance of beauty almost tires the soul, and the effect of the whole is sometimes obscured thereby. But happy the artist whose only fault lies in all too great perfection. ~ unknown music reviewer

64. Faultless to a fault.