Quotes About Perfection

I have a treasured set of matched grain crosscut horns made for me by master American carver Jim Cooke, cut yin-yang from the same block of briar he waited five years to find.

O saisons, ô châteaux, Quelle âme est sans défauts ?

Vegetarianism is a link to perfection and peace.

Discovering you've missed your tea's perfect drinking temperature by a fraction of a second.

When our gifts are remembered and lived, we discard the idea that happiness requires an ideal life in which we are comparatively the best. Many beautiful and enjoyable things are messy and far from ideal. Some of the greatest cooks have the messiest of kitchens, and beautiful gardens are the result of sweat and dirt. As we move closer to our essence, we better understand that we can have a wonderful life in the absence of perfection.

Nice Guys have a difficult time comprehending that in general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual's life energy.

At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect - a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known.

The most oft-cited line of Newman's An Essay on the Development of Doctrine is situated in this context: "In a higher world it may be otherwise; but here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often." So indeed, Pope John's Newman-like image of the "flourishing garden of life" effectively holds off a stuffy traditionalism.

It's not that perfection cannot be achieved. It's that it's so hard to stop there.

Where you find quality, you will find a craftsman, not a quality-control expert.

As any artist can tell you, it is easier to reach perfection than to stop there.

Inscribe all human effort with one word, Artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete!

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!

God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations.

Faultless to a fault.

The year's at the springAnd day's at the morn;Morning's at seven;The hillside's dew-pearled;The lark's on the wing;The snail's on the thorn:God's in his heaven—All's right with the world.

God is the perfect poet.

The perfect kind of architecture decision is the one which never has to be made

God is in the details, said the architect Ludwig mies van der Rohe.

There is no such thing as quick and dirty. Anything dirty is slow. The only way to go fast, is to go well.

Think of icons as sacred doors," her mother said, "between this world and a world of spiritual perfection—a place of peace, love, and holiness." Privately,

Prize intensity more than extensity. Perfection resides in quality, not quantity. Extent alone never rises above mediocrity, and it is the misfortune of men with wide general interests that while they would like to have their finger in every pie, they have one in none. Intensity gives eminence, and rises to the heroic in matters sublime. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

To think that by doing more you are doing better is a common blunder. It is never good to seem to be trying too hard—it is as if you were covering up some deficiency.

Leaving something unfinished was nearly as bad as messing up the details.