Perfect man

“ But He is a perfect man, incapable of the slightest quackery, capable only of every honest and modest and helpful purpose, and these are perfections to which manifestly no one is born, but only re-born. ”

“ Of all the virtues necessary to the completion of the perfect man, there is none to be more delicately implied and less ostentatiously vaunted than that of exquisite feeling or universal benevolence.—Bulwer-Lytton. ”

“ 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.—Spurgeon.
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, dead perfection ”

“ If what is imperfect constitutes the exception in the physical world, why should it be otherwise in the world of mind and of morals? Is it a thing to be preferred, to be stunted, and little, and dwarfish, in our intellectual and moral stature? Or do we prefer a state of childhood to that of a perfect man? ”

“ He it is by whom everyone lives, and moves, and hath his being. Perfect man is the eye and face that sees and declares the Father: and he is perfect when he is taken up in the Spirit and lives in the light of Reason.”45:1 “Reason is that living Power of Light that is in all things. ”

“ It may appear strange to some of you, and it certainly does to the world, to say it is possible for a man or woman to become perfect on this earth. It is written "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Again, "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." ”

“ The mingled strength and simplicity and sweetness of his nature, the lofty sense of justice, the tranquil and complete devotion to duty, the large and humane sympathy, not lost in vague philanthropic feeling, but mindful of every detail of relief—the sound and steady judgment, the noble independence of thought and perfect courage of conviction, the blended manliness and modesty of a life which was unstained, and of a character which seemed without a flaw, all belonged to what we call the ideal man. ”

“ I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. ”

“ Thus the perfect man does not forget utterly the things of childhood and youth and early manhood, but incorporates all that is best in each, and subordinates them to the highest; and thus the whole character becomes broader and more universal in its sympathies, as well as higher. ”

“ Thus we see that inward delights and they are chiefly love of knowledge and superiority are preferred by noble minds. If then a man believes in a perfect being, will not the pleasure of His contemplation be preferred by him and will it not absorb his whole self? Surely the delights of the righteous are indescribable, for they are even in this life, in a paradise which no eye has seen and no ear has heard. ”

“ In studying the material manifestations of the Divine Love and Wisdom, we find that the perfection of each minutest part is a type of the perfection of the great whole. So in the material works of man, every whole thing approaches perfection just in the degree that its several parts are perfect; and it is vain to labor for great results while we overlook minute details. So in life, society can never be a virtuous and happy whole until each individual, in his special vocation, fulfils every duty pertaining to his station. ”

“ First, recognize the great truth that every individual can live his own life exactly as he may desire to live. Man, himself, is the real master of his own existence, and he, himself, may determine how perfect and how beautiful that existence is to be. ”

“ Every man, as all people, being imperfect in everything, is nevertheless more perfect in some one thing than in another. And these perfections, he puts over another human being as a demand, and condemns him. ”

“ That the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect is a Notion natural to the Soul, and such as she cannot deny but it is exactly representative of such a Being, without any clashing of one part against another, all the Attributes thereof being homogeneal to the general Title of Perfection to which they belong, is a thing so plain, that I dare appeal to any man that has the use of his Faculties, whether it be not undoubtedly and immutably true. ”

“ The conditions of the personality are the direct effects of the states of the mind; therefore, the conditions of the personality will always be true, good and perfect so long as the states of the mind are true; and the states of the mind will always be true so long as the mind thinks the truth—thinks the truth about man as he is in the divine perfection of his real spiritual being. ”

“ Pleasure, we have seen, is by itself not the essence of goodness; and, on the other hand, no feature of the world falls outside of what is good. Beauty, truth, feeling, and sensation, every imaginable matter must go to constitute perfection. For perfection or individuality is a system, harmonious and thus inclusive of everything. And goodness we have now taken to be the willed reality of its perfection by a soul. And hence neither the form of system by itself, nor again, any one matter apart from the whole, is either perfect or good. ”

“ The basic question which we have to ask for ourselves is: what kind of a human being do you want? But unfortunately we have placed before ourselves the model of a perfect being. The perfect being is a god man or a spiritual man or an avatar, or some such being. ”

“ Here I find perfection apprehended variously in relation to Him who excels in every virtue. Accordingly one is perfected as pious, and as patient, and as continent, and as a worker, and as a martyr, and as a Gnostic. But I know no one of men perfect in all things at once, while still human, though according to the mere letter of the law, except Him alone who for us clothed Himself with humanity. ”

“ Development of the Individual.—It is not possible for human beings to attain their full stature of humanity, except by loving long and perfectly. Behold that venerable man! he is mature in judgment, perfect in every action and expression, and saintly in goodness. ”

“ First of all, He gives us the perfect ideal of human life in a short phrase, and that comes at the end, "the things that please him." Those are the things that create perfect human life, living in the realm of which man realizes perfectly all the possibilities of his wondrous being—"the things that please him." ”

“ No great man ever does all that he sets out to do. He cannot, since his aim is no less than perfection.”
“I hate perfect people,” said Virginia, “or to think of any great man as perfect, because it is so inhuman. I read a book for children, lately, about Jesus, which made him out a perfect child. ”

“ But in our evolving universe of relative perfection and imperfection we rejoice that disagreement and misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is evidenced the fact and the act of personality in the universe. And if our creation is an existence dominated by personality, then can you be assured of the possibilities of personality survival, advancement, and achievement; we can be confident of personality growth, experience, and adventure. What a glorious universe, in that it is personal and progressive, not merely mechanical or even passively perfect! ”

“ But from this conception follows, that a man may be truly called good, although not perfect. He may be so and yet have many failures. The direction of his aspirations, not the degree to which these are fulfilled, determines his character, and his right to be reckoned a good man. ”

“ The Perfect Should Not Have Grown.—With regard to everything that is perfect we are accustomed to omit the question as to how perfection has been acquired, and we only rejoice in the present as if it had sprung out of the ground by magic. ”

“ How rich is this earth in small, good, perfect things, in well-constituted things!
Set around you small, good, perfect things, you higher men. Their golden maturity heals the heart. The perfect teaches one to hope. ”

“ Of those who now maintain that man was once perfect, who may very easily be found, let the author inquire, whether man was ever omniscient, whether he was ever omnipotent; whether he ever had even the lower power of archangels or angels. Their answers will soon inform him, that the supposed perfection of man was not absolute, but respective; that he was perfect, in a sense consistent enough with subordination, perfect, not as compared with different beings, but with himself in his present degeneracy; not perfect, as an angel, but perfect, as man. ”

“ A man to be perfect—complete, that is, in having reached the spiritual condition of persistent and universal growth, which is the mode wherein he inherits the infinitude of his Father—must have the education of a world of fellow-men. ”

“ if, I say, this is so, and we assume the work of Man to be life of a certain kind, that is to say a working of the soul, and actions with reason, and of a good man to do these things well and nobly, and in fact everything is finished off well in the way of the excellence which peculiarly belongs to it: if all this is so, then the Good of Man comes to be “a working of the Soul in the way of Excellence,” or, if Excellence admits of degrees, in the way of the best and most perfect Excellence. ”

“ And yet mere common sense ought to tell us that He, whose way is perfect, can make no mistakes; that He who has promised to "perfect that which concerneth" us, and whose minute care counts the very hairs of our heads, and forms for us our circumstances, must know better than we the way to forward our truest interests and to glorify His own Name. ”

“ 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 endeavours to attain. ”

“ I may here, in passing, and for the sake of illustration merely, express the fundamental principle of morality in the following formula: “So act that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.”
The ultimate vocation of every finite, rational being is thus absolute unity, constant identity, perfect harmony with himself. ”

“ At some time in our life I am sure that each of us has selected the person who filled most nearly our notion of what we should like to become, and measured ourselves by this pattern. But there comes a time when we must idealize even the most perfect individual ”

“ To those who seek to emulate the character and deeds of the world's famous men, certain essential qualities of mind may even be acquired and developed by all, but to possess the "fullness of perfection" cannot be the lot of every man. ”

“ The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright, and from being overthrown by its own weakness. ”

“ But, on the other hand, He is called perfect, both as without increase, and always perfect, and as undiminished, as pre-holding all things in Himself, and overflowing as beseems one, inexhaustible, and same, and super-full, and undiminished, abundance, in accordance with which He perfects all perfect things, and fills them with His own perfection. ”

“ Perfection.—In all systems whatsoever, whether of religion, government, morals, etc., perfection is the object always proposed, though possibly unattainable; hitherto, at least, certainly unattained. However, those who aim carefully at the mark itself, will unquestionably come nearer to it than those who, from despair, negligence, or indolence, leave to chance the work of skill. This maxim holds equally true in common life; those who aim at perfection will come infinitely nearer it than those desponding or indolent spirits, who foolishly say to themselves, nobody is perfect ”

“ But men have ever set aside the weavings of minds so absorbed in the wonder of their speculations that they could not see the truth. They have seen through the dreamings of poets, painters, and preachers, who pictured only their sickly ideals. And, instead of their caricatures, men have held in their hearts a man, one of their own. And this true fellow, brother and friend, has spurred them to noble deeds and lofty living.
Perfection is seen in strength, not in weakness, in virility and not in tears, in majesty, the majesty truly of meekness, but not of a maudlin, mooning etherealism. ”

“ In these commands He has embodied in words the ideal to which He would have us attain an ideal which is reflected from his own person and life. Now when we fall in love with that perfect ideal as personally represented in Him, and as expressed in the instructions He has given us in his Word, we have fallen in love with Him. We cannot separate our ideal from his person, because in Him alone that perfect life is perfectly revealed. If we drop his personality from thought in this connection, our ideal of perfection loses its glory or sinks into something less than perfect. ”

“ And by recommending, and still more by himself exemplifying in his own practice, by showing active in himself, with the most prepossessing pureness, clearness, and beauty, the two qualities by which our ordinary self is indeed most essentially counteracted, self-renouncement and mildness, he made his followers feel that in these qualities lay the secret of their best self; that to attain them was in the highest degree requisite and natural, and that a man's whole happiness depended upon it. ”