Imperfect Quotes - Page 5

• Ordinary people who know nothing of phonetics or elocution have difficulties in understanding slow speech composed of perfect sounds, while they have no difficulty in comprehending an imperfect gabble if only the accent and rhythm are natural.

  Alexander Graham Bell

  Communication, People, Perfect

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• It is possible to reclaim your future, to build a happy life despite an imperfect past. We can order the universe to our will and mind.

  Katherine Marsh

  Happy Life, Past, Order

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• I sometimes think there is a dimension beyond the four of experience and Einstein: insight, that fifth dimension which promises to liberate us from bondage to the long, imperfect past

  Leo Rosten

  Past, Thinking, Long

  Leo Rosten (1978). “Passions & Prejudices: Or, Some of My Best Friends are People”

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• The civilized man is a larger mind but a more imperfect nature than the savage.

  Margaret Fuller

  Men, Civilization, Mind

  Margaret Fuller (1992). “The Essential Margaret Fuller”, p.204, Rutgers University Press

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• Your best changes from moment to moment, sick or well, tired or rested. Remember that you are an imperfect human being. There is no value to judging yourself for

  Miguel Angel Ruiz

  Tired, Judging Yourself, Sick

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• Writers don't always know what they mean - that's why they write. Their work stands in for them. On the page, the reader meets the authoritative, perfected self; in life, the writer is lumbered with the uncertain, imperfect one.

  John Lahr

  Writing, Mean, Self

  "Reality Checks" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. May 31, 2010.

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• Personal prayer, it seems to me, is one of the simplest necessities of life, as basic to the individual as sunshine, food and water-and at times, of course, more so. By prayer I mean an effort to get in touch with the Infinite. We know that our prayers are imperfect. Of course they are. We are imperfect human beings. A thousand experiences have convinced me beyond room of doubt that prayer multiplies the strength of the individual and brings within the scope of his capabilities almost any conceivable objective.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Prayer, Mean, Sunshine

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• I don't mistrust reality, of which I know next to nothing. I mistrust the picture of reality conveyed to us by our senses, which is imperfect and circumscribed.

  Gerhard Richter

  Photography, Reality, Next

  FaceBook post by Gerhard Richter from Mar 13, 2014

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• We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect. Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they are sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

  Jeff Miller

  Humble, Government, Order

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• I am so imperfect, can you love me when really my soul is deformed? Will you love me anyhow?

  Anne Sexton

  Soul, My Soul

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• That the happiness of man may still remain imperfect, as wants in this place are easily supplied, new wants likewise are easily created; every man, in surveying the shops of London, sees numberless instruments and conveniencies, of which, while he did not know them, he never felt the need; and yet, when use has made them familiar, wonders how life could be supported without them. Thus it comes to pass, that our desires always increase with our possessions; the knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed, impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Desire, Needs

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.44

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• The spirit of Plato dies hard. We have been unable to escape the philosophical tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Plato, Philosophy, Philosophical

  Stephen Jay Gould (2006). “The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded)”, p.177, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Invention depends altogether upon execution or organization; as that is right or wrong so is the invention perfect or imperfect.

  William Blake

  Organization, Perfect, Execution

  William Blake (2008). “The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake”, p.637, Univ of California Press

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• Men shouldn’t try too hard, or think about what they wear too much. I like when there’s something about a look that throws it off a little – perfection is really imperfect.

  Thom Browne

  Men, Thinking, Perfection

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• Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world. The best way is to forget doubts and set about the task in hand. . . . If you are doing your best, you will not have time to worry about failure.

  Robert Hillyer

  Failure, Imperfect World, Hands

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• Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.

  Edward Gibbon

  Hope, Comfort, Anticipation

  Edward Gibbon (1846). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.45

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• In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.

  Joseph Priestley

  Knowledge, Discovery, Ideas

  Joseph Priestley (1780). “The theological and miscellaneous works of Joseph Priestley”, p.372

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• There is a state of perfect peace with God to be attained under imperfect obedience.

  John Owen

  Peace, Perfect, Obedience

  "The Works of John Owen".

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• The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may safely be left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Imperfection, Criticism, Finals

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• There is always a but in this imperfect world.

  Anne Bronte

  Imperfect World, Imperfection, A Perfect World

  Anne Bronte (2006). “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, p.257, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Kindness, Imperfection, Enemy

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.197, 谷月社

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• DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead - a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Imperfection, Wicked

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.57, University of Georgia Press

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• To me, art almost always speaks more forcefully when it appears in an imperfect, accidental, and fragmentary way, somehow just signaling its presence, allowing one to feel it through the ineptitude of the interpretation. I prefer the Chopin that reaches me in the street from an open window to the Chopin served in great style from the concert stage.

  Witold Gombrowicz

  Art, Style, Ineptitude

  Witold Gombrowicz (1988). “Diary”, p.32, Northwestern University Press

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• We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.

  Harold Bloom

  Space, People, Sorrow

  Harold Bloom (2001). “How to Read and Why”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

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• We're all imperfect, and life is simply a perpetual, unending struggle against those imperfections.

  Sidney Poitier

  Struggle, Imperfection, Life Is

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