Perfection Quotes - Page 20

• The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended; and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many thing by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection!

  William Shakespeare

  Thinking, Crow, Musician

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 102

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.

  Eric Hoffer

  Animal, Men, Perfect

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic. The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed "Perfection," promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: "I don't agree with you," and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Views, Editors, Feet

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.180, University of Georgia Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Art has no end but its own perfection.

  Plato

  Art, Ends

  Plato (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Plato (Illustrated)”, p.6231, Delphi Classics

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Works of Art can only be produc'd in Perfection where the Man is either in Affluence or is Above the Care of it.

  William Blake

  Art, Men, Care

  William Blake (1977). “The Portable William Blake”, p.451, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When reality becomes unbearable, the mind must withdraw from it and create a world of artificial perfection. Plato's world of pure Ideas and Forms, which alone is to be considered as real, whereas the world of nature which we perceive is merely its cheap Woolworth copy, is a flight into delusion.

  Arthur Koestler

  Plato, Real, Ideas

  5 Copy quote

• The mind, the soul, becomes ennobled by the endeavour to create something perfect, for God is perfection, and whoever strives after perfection is striving for something devine.

  Michelangelo

  Perfect, Soul, Mind

  13 Copy quote

• An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Marriage, Heart, Hands

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1873). “Mosses from an Old Manse”, p.150

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I hiked around town, the air sweet and dry, and was sort of overwhelmed by the perfection of it -- the old courthouse, the train depot, Mount [Jumbo] and Mount Sentinel rising up, the neon bars, the funky festivity of a college town .

  Garrison Keillor

  Sweet, College, Air

  10 Copy quote

• The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections.

  Edmund Burke

  Religion, World, Body

  Edmund Burke, Robert MONTGOMERY (Author of “Satan.”.) (1853). “Edmund Burke: being first principles selected from his writings. With an introductory essay by Robert Montgomery”, p.232

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best pictures are always those one dreams of when one is smoking a pipe in bed, but which never get done. But still one ought to try, however incompetent one may feel before the unspeakable perfection and radiant splendour of nature.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Dream, Smoking, Trying

  Vincent Van Gogh (2013). “Van Gogh on Art and Artists: Letters to Emile Bernard”, p.64, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance.

  Thomas Sowell

  Mean, Impossible, Economic

  4 Copy quote

• It becomes possible to admit that plainness may coexist with nobility of nature, and fine features with baseness; and yet to hold that mental and physical perfection are fundamentally connected, and will, when the present causes of incongruity have worked themselves out, be ever found united.

  Herbert Spencer

  Beauty, May, Causes

  4 Copy quote

• We Christians joyfully recognize the religious values we have in common with Islam. I would like to repeat what I said to young Muslims some years ago in Casablanca: 'We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God, the God who created the world and brings his creatures to their perfection.

  Pope John Paul II

  Christian, Religious, Believe

  49 Copy quote

• When we speak of the perfection of art, we must recollect what the materials are with which a painter contends with nature. For the light of the sun he has but patent yellow and white lead - for the darkest shade, umber or soot.

  John Constable

  Art, Light, Yellow

  John Constable (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of John Constable (Illustrated)”, p.587, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• False notes [on the piano] are human. Why does everything have to be perfect? You know, perfection itself is imperfection.

  Vladimir Horowitz

  Piano, Perfect, Doe

  50 Copy quote

• The so-called conscientiousness of the majority of painters is only perfection applied to the art of boring.

  Eugene Delacroix

  Art, Boredom, Majority

  9 Copy quote

• Cold exactitude is not art... The so-called consciousness of the majority of painters is only perfection applied to the art of boring. People like that, if they could, would work with the same minute attention on the back of their canvas.

  Eugene Delacroix

  Art, People, Criticism

  35 Copy quote

• The collector attempts always to acquire the best, and his knowledge of what is best is always widening. His is the task of judging between degrees of perfection.

  Arthur Davison Ficke

  Judging, Degrees, Tasks

  7 Copy quote

• 1-Don't analyze. 2-Don't complain. 3-Don't compare yourself to others. 4-Don't expect things to be done for you. 5-Don't expect perfection in the relative. 6-Look to the knowledge aspect daily. 7-Own the movement. 8-Problems are all in your head. 9-Hold yourself together.

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

  Together, Complaining, Looks

  141 Copy quote

• The world has witnessed the rise and fall of monarchy, the rise and fall of dictatorship, the rise and fall of feudalism, the rise and fall of communism, and the rise of democracy; and now we are witnessing the fall of democracy... the theme of the evolution of life continues, sweeping away with it all that does not blossom into perfection.

  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

  Fall, Democracy, Doe

  21 Copy quote

• Charm and perfection hardly cooperate. Charm premises little mistakes which one would like to cover.

  Catherine Deneuve

  Mistake, Littles, Charm

  11 Copy quote

• The perfection of an art consists in the employment of a comprehensive system of laws, commensurate to every purpose within its scope, but concealed from the eye of the spectator; and in the production of effects that seem to flow forth spontaneously, as though uncontrolled by their influence, and which are equally excellent, whether regarded individually, or in reference to the proposed result.

  John Mason Good

  Art, Eye, Law

  John Mason Good (1837). “The Book of Nature: From the Last London Ed., to which is Now Prefixed, a Sketch of the Author's Life”, p.93

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• In large studio paintings... composition, or arrangement, may be better studied, and nearer perfection, washes may be more suavely graded.

  Walter J. Phillips

  May, Painting, Composition

  4 Copy quote

• The object of man's worship, whatever it be, will naturally be his standard of perfection. He clothes it with every attribute, belonging, in his view, to a perfect character; and this character he himself endeavors to attain.

  Simon Greenleaf

  Character, Men, Clothes

  Simon Greenleaf (1995). “The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence”, p.13, Kregel Publications

  7 Copy quote

  Show source