Perfection Quotes - Page 31

• He who only writes to suit the taste of the age, considers himself more than his writings. We should always aim at perfection, and then posterity will do us that justice which sometimes our contemporaries refuse us.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Writing, Justice, Age

  "Characters: Of Works of the Mind," #67, 1688.

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• In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished - a word that for them has no sense - but abandoned; and this abandonment, whether to the flames or to the public (and which is the result of weariness or an obligation to deliver) is a kind of an accident to them, like the breaking off of a reflection, which fatigue, irritation, or something similar has made worthless.

  Paul Valery

  Eye, Reflection, Irritation

  "Collected Works", vol. 1,("Recollection"), 1972.

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• [The career a young man should choose should be] one that is most consonant with our dignity, one that is based on ideas of whose truth we are wholly convinced, one that offers us largest scope in working for humanity and approaching that general goal towards which each profession offers only one of the means: the goal of perfection ... If he works only for himself he can become a famous scholar, a great sage, an excellent imaginative writer [ Dichter ], but never a perfected, a truly great man.

  Karl Marx

  Mean, Men, Careers

  "Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation", 1835.

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• Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had; for he noted the vices of all knowledges, in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one Art.

  Ben Jonson

  Art, Men, Judging

  Ben Jonson (1838). “The Works of Ben Jonson”, p.763

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• A man who from the beginning has long been soaked in the languid atmosphere of a woman, the scent of her hands, her bosom, her knees, her hair, her lithe and flowing clothes,
  Sweet bath, suavely
  Scented with ointments,
  
  has acquired a delicacy of skin, a refinement of tone, a kind of androgyny without which the toughest and most virile of geniuses remains, when it comes to artistic perfection, an incomplete being.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Women, Hair, Hands

  "Les paradis artificiels". Book by Charles Baudelaire, 1860.

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• The saddest thing in the world was that human beings, for all their ardent striving and desire, could never achieve physical, emotional, or intellectual perfection. The species was doomed to imperfection; it thrashed forever in despair or denial of that fact.

  Dean Koontz

  Emotional, Forever, Intellectual

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Dark Rivers of the Heart: A Novel”, p.194, Bantam

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• A friend who loved perfection would be the perfect friend, did not that love shut his door on me.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Doors, Perfect, Would Be

  1931 Afterthoughts, 'Other People'.

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• Beauty is Nature in perfection; circularity is its chief attribute. Behold the full moon, the enchanting golf ball, the domes of splendid temples, the huckleberry pie, the wedding ring, the circus ring, the ring for the waiter, and the "round" of drinks.

  O. Henry

  Golf, Moon, Pie

  O. Henry (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of O. Henry (Illustrated)”, p.681, Delphi Classics

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• An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it neither higher nor lower.

  Simone Weil

  Levels, Imagine, Higher

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.99, Psychology Press

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• Only gods can safely risk perfection ... it's a dangerous thing for a man.

  Frank Herbert

  Men, Risk, Dangerous

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• In contrast to the asexual chasteness of official communist art , Nazi art is both prurient and idealizing. A utopian aesthetics (physical perfection; identity as a biological given) implies an ideal eroticism: sexuality converted into the magnetism of leaders and the joy of followers. The fascist ideal is to transform sexual energy into a "spiritual" force, for the benefit of the community.

  Susan Sontag

  Spiritual, Art, Community

  Susan Sontag (1983). “A Susan Sontag reader”, Vintage

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• It is all very well to say that children are happier with mud pies and rag dolls than with these elaborate delights. There may be something in this theory, but when their amusements are carried to such a point of luxurious and imaginative perfection it certainly gives them great and even unlimited enjoyment at the time.

  Ada Leverson

  Children, Pie, Giving

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• Euripides seems to have felt that the dignified perfection of Sophocles could be challenged only by novelty and irresponsibility. The religious conditions of the Dionysian festival kept him within certain bounds. But within the imposed limits Euripides was as profane as he dared to be, making melodrama of the divine realities which his predecessors accepted religiously, using the stage merely as a convenience for popularizing his own eccentric values.

  Laura Riding

  Religious, Reality, Novelty

  "Poetic Drama". "The Common Asphodel". Book by Robert Graves, 1949.

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• I'm not a director that's about precision and control and perfection, I'm about creating an atmosphere that's organic and interesting and then letting people loose, and for that there's no greater actor or performer than children. Animals are maybe a close runner-up.

  David Gordon Green

  Children, Animal, Creating

  Source: collider.com

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• I'm obsessed with perfection. I want to work. I don't want to stop. I want to take advantage and make myself the best possible me that I can be.

  Drake

  Want, Obsessed, Advantage

  "On the Cover: Drake". Interview with Claire Hoffman, www.gq.com. April 13, 2012.

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• Beauty is the attractive power of perfection.

  Ananda Coomaraswamy

  Beauty, Attractive

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• When the true qualities of photography are recognized, the process of representation by mechanical means will be brought to a level of perfection never before reached.

  Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

  Photography, Mean, Quality

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• The perfection of the effect demonstrates the perfection of the cause, for a greater power brings about a more perfect effect. But God is the most perfect agent. Therefore, things created by Him obtain perfection from Him. So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Perfect, Agents, Causes

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1955). “On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: God”

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• The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Men, Mind, Care

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1956). “On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: pts. 1-2. Providence”

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• The perfect man of pagans was the perfection of the man there is; the perfect man of christians, the perfection of the man there isn't; the buddhists' perfect man, the perfection of not existing a man.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Christian, Buddhist, Men

  "The Book of Disquiet". The Book of Disquiet, 1982.

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• Mankind, transmitting from generation to generation the legacy of accumulated vengeances, and pursuing with the feelings of duty the misery of their fellow-beings, have not failed to attribute to the Universal Cause a character analogous with their own. The image of this invisible, mysterious Being is more or less excellent and perfect — resembles more or less its original — in proportion to the perfection of the mind on which it is impressed.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  God, Character, Perfect

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1859). “Shelley Memorials: From Authentic Sources : Now First Printed”, p.270

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• Where is perfection? Where I cannot reach.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Thomas Love Peacock (1944). “Shelley at Oxford”

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• It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed but uniformity.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Quick Wit, Speed, Advantage

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• As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.

  Charles Darwin

  Progress, Natural, Origin Of Species

  Charles Darwin (1875). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.428

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• As we educate a child -- removing out of its path those obstacles over which we ourselves, in early days, have stumbled, and strengthening its mind with the aid of our own matured experience -- we, as it were, construct a new and better replica of ourselves, and thus enable the race to move slowly, but surely, forward towards the ultimate goal of existence -- towards perfection.

  Leonid Andreyev

  Children, Moving, Race

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