Quotes about perfection

Does not the acceptance of a spurious perfection end the search for true perfection?

Human perfection and technical perfection are incompatible. If we strive for one, we must sacrifice the other: there is, in any case, a parting of the ways. Whoever realises this will do cleaner work one way or the other.

A better world, yes; a perfect world, never. (p82)

Good is the enemy of great. That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem. It is a human problem

You could not arrive at excellence by the average of these people. Excellence was an individual quest, not a group effort.

If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.

Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.

One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

To hate excellence is to hate the gods.

It's like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye'd just as well to do it all wrong. (p.71)

I’m not quite twenty, but, thanks to you, I’ve learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn’t that be the way to make love stay?

I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed.