If you perform the sacrifice of doing your duty, you do not have to do anything else. Devoted to duty, man attains perfection.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.
—Alice Walker (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
Friendships aren’t perfect and yet they are very precious. For me, not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (b.1939) American Social Activist, Journalist
He who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture hath pounds of much worse matter.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is…. Nothing should be able to harm a man but himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Everything is perfect in the universe—even your desire to improve it.
—Wayne Dyer (b.1940) American Motivational Writer, Author, Motivational Speaker
He is all fault who hath no fault at all. For who loves me must have a touch of earth.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
There are few things more disturbing than to find, in somebody we detest, a moral quality which seems to us demonstrably superior to anything we ourselves possess. It augurs not merely an unfairness on the part of creation, but a lack of artistic judgment. Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.
—Pamela Hansford Johnson (1912–81) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Literary Critic, Social Critic
Every man has his follies—and often they are the most interesting thing he has got.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
—Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian Singer, Songwriter, Poet, Novelist
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.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
Perfectionism is slow death.
—Hugh Prather (b.1938) American Christian Author, Minister, Counselor
Measure not by the scale of perfection the meager product of reality.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
A good garden may have some weeds.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.
—Martha Graham (1894–1991) American Choreographer
The organizations of men, like men themselves, seem subject to deafness, near-sightedness, lameness, and involuntary cruelty. We seem tragically unable to help one another, to understand one another.
—John Cheever (1912–82) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
I like a man with faults, especially when he knows it. To err is human – I’m uncomfortable around gods.
—Hugh Prather (b.1938) American Christian Author, Minister, Counselor
The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization.
—Karen Horney (1885–1952) German-born American Psychoanalyst
Always live up to your standards – by lowering them, if necessary.
—Mignon McLaughlin (1913–83) American Journalist, Author
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Living up to ideals is like doing everyday work with your Sunday clothes on.
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
You’re only human, you’re supposed to make mistakes.
—Billy Joel (b.1949) American Singer, Songwriter, Musician
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individuals.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
Out of perfection nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer
The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
No one is perfect… that’s why pencils have erasers.
—Unknown
The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
When everything has to be right, something isn’t.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet
We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Among the other excellencies of man, this is one, that he can form the image of perfection much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
Imperfections are the essence of evolution.
—Unknown
Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Use what talents you have; the woods would have little music if no birds sang their song except those who sang best.
—Oliver G. Wilson
If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything for us to do.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
I don’t like these cold, precise, perfect people, who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
The essence of man is imperfection.
—Norman Cousins (1915–90) American Journalist, Author, Academic, Activist
He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a perfect man. Every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds. And faults of some kind nestle in every bosom.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection—even though nothing more than the pounding of an old piano—is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Once you accept the fact that you’re not perfect, then you develop some confidence.
—Rosalynn Carter (b.1927) American Humanitarian, First Lady
He is lifeless that is faultless.
—English Proverb