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Perfection quotes

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“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.” Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” - 1877

“Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract” - 1762

“God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.” G. K. Chesterton, “Orthodoxy” - 1908

“The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.” Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo” - 1845

“I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“rich people don’t like to tolerate much. Money gives you permission to just walk away from everything that isn’t pretty and perfect.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Diary” - 2003

“A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.” Haruki Murakami, “Kafka on the Shore” - 2002

“Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them; for the temperate man desires as he ought to desire, and what he ought to desire, as stated in Ethic.” Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Theologica” - 1274

“A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.” Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” - 1818

“May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing.” Rabindranath Tagore, “The Home and the World” - 1916

“No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end.” Stephenie Meyer, “Twilight” - 2005

“you can't wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.” Ray Bradbury, “Something Wicked This Way Comes” - 1962

“It is through Art, and through Art only, that we can realise our perfection;” Oscar Wilde, “Intentions” - 1891

“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.” J. D. Salinger, “Franny and Zooey” - 1961

“A country that demands moral perfection of itself as a test of its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.” Henry Kissinger, “Diplomacy” - 1994

“It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.” Erich Maria Remarque, “Arch of Triumph” - 1945

Related topics

waiting morality passion sweetness life God imperfection time virtue desire toughness humanity end intelligence writing good money art satisfaction democracy

Related authors

Chuck Palahniuk (3)
Oscar Wilde (2)
Haruki Murakami (2)
G. K. Chesterton (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
H. G. Wells (1)
Benjamin Franklin (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
Leo Tolstoy (1)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1)
Alexandre Dumas (1)
Rabindranath Tagore (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Ray Bradbury (1)
Henry Miller (1)
J. D. Salinger (1)
Henry Kissinger (1)
Thomas Aquinas (1)
Stephenie Meyer (1)
Mary Shelley (1)

Related sources

Fight Club (2)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
The Time Machine (1)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1)
Anna Karenina (1)
The Social Contract (1)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1)
Norwegian Wood (1)
The Home and the World (1)
East of Eden (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)
Diplomacy (1)
Summa Theologica (1)
Twilight (1)
Frankenstein (1)
Intentions (1)
Diary (1)
Kafka on the Shore (1)