Imperfect Quotes - Page 4

• Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

  Toni Morrison

  Equality, Sisterhood, Rights

  Barnard College Commencement Address, May 1979.

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• A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.

  Lewis Mumford

  Beauty, Truth, Sight

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• There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  War, Civilization, Political

  Reinhold Niebuhr (1967). “Love and justice: selections from the shorter writings of Reinhold Niebuhr”

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• A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike.

  Conor Oberst

  Bombs, Weapons, Blunt

  "Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst responds to Arizona promoter’s boycott concerns" by Katie Hasty, uproxx.com. July 2, 2010.

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• Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

  Blaise Pascal

  Sports, Men, Play

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• A republic - if you can keep it - is about limitation, and for good reason, because we are mortal and our actions are imperfect.

  Mike Pence

  India, Republic, Our Actions

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing.

  William Lyon Phelps

  Stars, Ocean, Son

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• Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.

  Steven Pinker

  Democracy, Way, Anarchy

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• Even as we enumerate their shortcomings, the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers' incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong, who will protect us? If they are not imperfect, how can we equal them?

  Anna Quindlen

  Mother, Strong, Children

  Anna Quindlen (2010). “Living Out Loud”, p.101, Ballantine Books

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• Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments.

  Jason Reitman

  Movie, Art, Mistake

  Interview with Radheyan Simonpillai, www.askmen.com. December 4, 2009.

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• The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins.

  Salman Rushdie

  Acceptance, Reality, Air

  Salman Rushdie (1990). “Is nothing sacred?”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

  John Ruskin

  Important, Noble, Literature

  John Ruskin, Frederick William Roe (2013). “Selections and Essays”, p.231, Courier Corporation

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• If you are kept in ignorance of the true way and permit yourself to rely upon and be guided by the opinion of imperfect man, you can never gain the riches that will bring you peace and lasting happiness.

  Joseph Franklin Rutherford

  Happiness, Ignorance, Men

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• But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you.

  J. D. Salinger

  Karma, Running, Mean

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• Anyone who can read history with both hemispheres of the brain knows that a world comes to an end every instant--the waves of time leave washed up behind themselves only dry memories of a closed & petrified past--imperfect memory, itself already dying & autumnal. And every instant also gives birth to a world--despite the cavillings of philosophers & scientists whose bodies have grown numb--a present in which all impossibilities are renewed, where regret & premonition fade to nothing in one presential hologrammatical psychomantric gesture.

  Hakim Bey

  Memories, Regret, Past

  Hakim Bey (2003). “T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism”, p.34, Autonomedia

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• The line of gray along the horizon is brighter now, and with the coming light I feel a certainty: that there is, despite our wild imaginings, only one life. The ghostly others, no matter how real they seem, no matter how badly we need them, are phantoms. The one life we're left with is sufficient to fill and refill our imperfect hearts with joy, and then to shatter them. And it never, ever lets up.

  Richard Russo

  Real, Heart, Light

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• The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature’s imperfect but tenacious survivors.

  Robert Fulghum

  Letting Go, Survivor, Sometimes

  Robert Fulghum (2004). “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things”, p.144, Ballantine Books

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• He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit educated Maurice's spirit, for they themselves became equal. Neither thought "Am I led; am I leading?" Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.

  E. M. Forster

  Order, Two, Perfection

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• When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe... that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment. As all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Freedom, Believe, Fighting

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• [Government] regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa.

  Michael Pollan

  Government, Accountability, Vices

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• Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning.

  Erwin McManus

  Jesus, Heart, New Beginnings

  Erwin Raphael McManus (2008). “Soul Cravings”, p.77, Thomas Nelson

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• Miro, I'm so sorry. I always felt such pity for you humans because you could only think of one thing at a time and your memories were so imperfect and . . . now I realize that just getting through the day without killing somebody can be an achievement." It gets to be a habit. Most of us manage to keep our body count quite low. It's the neighborly way to live.

  Orson Scott Card

  Sorry, Memories, Thinking

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• The imperfect is our paradise.

  Wallace Stevens

  Paradise

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.218, Vintage

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• Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.

  Mark Helprin

  Imperfect World, Bridges, Cities

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.555, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say "Oh look!" Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Solitude, Looks, Elbows

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