Perfection Quotes - Page 33

• Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings,
  The noble mind's distinguishing perfection
  That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her
  And imitates her actions where she is not:
  It is not to be sported with.

  Joseph Addison

  Kings, Law, Ties

  Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd (1811). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, a New Ed., with Notes”, p.364

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• God has set the type of marriage through creation. Each creature seeks its perfection in another.

  Martin Luther

  Celibacy, Creation, Type

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• The greatest of all heroes is One--whom we do not name here! Let sacred silence meditate that sacred matter; you will find it the ultimate perfection of a principle extant throughout man's whole history on earth.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Hero, Men, Names

  Thomas Carlyle (1846). “On Heroes, Hero-worship, & the Heroic in History: Six Lectures ; Reported, with Emendations and Additions”, p.10

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• To bring the best human qualities to anything like perfection, to fill them with the sweet juices of courtesy and charity, prosperity, or, at all events, a moderate amount of it, is required,--just as sunshine is needed for the ripening of peaches and apricots.

  Alexander Smith

  Sweet, Sunshine, Quality

  Alexander Smith (1866). “Miss Oona McQuarrie: A sequel to Alfred Hagart's household”, p.116

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• The perfection of conversational intercourse is when the breeding of high life is animated by the fervor of genius.

  Leigh Hunt

  Genius, Life Is, Conversation

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• The works of a person that begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve. In this, planting promises a more lasting pleasure than building; which, were it to remain in equal perfection, would at best begin to moulder and want repairs in imagination. Now trees have a circumstance that suits our taste, and that is annual variety.

  William Shenstone

  Imagination, Tree, Promise

  William Shenstone (1764). “The Works in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq: Most of which Were Never Before Printed ...”, p.137

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• Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Causes, Misery, Folly

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1957). “Notebooks”

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• We should amuse our evening hours of life in cultivating the tender plants, and bringing them to perfection, before they are transplanted to a happier clime.

  George Washington

  Children, Evening, Hours

  George Washington (1858). “The Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts : with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.5

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• A wise man will always be a Christian, because the perfection of wisdom is to know where lies tranquillity of mind and how to attain it, which Christianity teaches.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Christian, Wise, Wisdom

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Works of Walter Savage Landor”, p.101

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• Heaven will be the perfection we've always longed for. All the things that made Earth unlovely and tragic will be absent in heaven.

  Billy Graham

  Heaven, Earth, Made

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• In all thy actions think God sees thee; and in all His actions labor to see Him; that will make thee fear Him; this will move thee to love Him; the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the knowledge of God is the perfection of love.

  Francis Quarles

  God, Moving, Thinking

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.100

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• The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspiration, Play, Harps

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• We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the superiority of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things! Each has what the other has not; each completes the other; they are in nothing alike and the happiness and perfection of both depend on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give.

  John Ruskin

  Sex, Equality, Giving

  John Ruskin (2001). “Sesame and Lilies”, p.76, Electric Book Company

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• God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience--an obedience to His own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of his creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature "that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.

  John Ruskin

  God, Hurt, Law

  John Ruskin (1849). “The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.37

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• Surely the novel should be a form of art - but art was not enough. It must contain not only the perfection of art, but the imperfection of nature.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Art, Enough, Form

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• Poetry should be vital--either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame.

  Augustine Birrell

  Blood, Poetry, Movement

  Augustine Birrell (1885). “Obiter Dicta ...: Carlye. On the alleged obscurity of Mr. Browning's poetry. Truth-hunting. Actors. A rogue's memoirs. The via media. Falstaff [by George Radford”

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• This toxic striving for perfection is a female thing. How many men obsess about being perfect? For men, generally, good enough is good enough.

  Jane Fonda

  Men, Perfect, Toxic

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• To want to become angels while we are still on earth ... is ridiculous.

  Teresa of Avila

  Angel, Earth, Want

  Saint Teresa (of Avila) (1946). “General introduction. Life. Spiritual relations”

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• He that would have the perfection of pleasure must be moderate in the use of it.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Use, Pleasure, Moderates

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• First, we believe that God is a being with a body in form like man's; that he possesses body, parts and passions; that in a word, God is an exalted, perfected man. Secondly, we believe in a plurality of Gods. Third, we believe that somewhere and some time in the ages to come, through development, through enlargement, through purification until perfection is attained, man at last may become like God - a God.

  B. H. Roberts

  Believe, Passion, Men

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• In America, even your menus have the gift of language.... The Chef's own Vienna Roast. A hearty, rich meat loaf, gently seasoned to perfection and served in a creamy nest of mashed farm potatoes and strictly fresh garden vegetables. Of course, what you get is cole slaw and a slab of meat, but that doesn't matter because the menu has already started your juices going. Oh, those menus. In America, they are poetry.

  Laurie Lee

  Food, Garden, Vegetables

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• In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Self, Supremacy

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• Just so far as we are pleased at finding faults, are we displeased at finding perfection.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Envy, Faults, Findings

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• Beauty of form affects the mind, but then it must be understood that it is not the mere shell that we admire; we are attracted by the idea that this shell is only a beautiful case adjusted to the shape and value of a still more beautiful pearl within. The perfection of outward loveliness is the soul shining through its crystalline covering.

  Jane Porter

  Beauty, Beautiful, Ideas

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.84

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• Sometimes I could quit paint and take to charring. It must be fine to clean perfectly, to shine and polish and know that it could not be done better. In painting that never occurs.

  Emily Carr

  Shining, Done, Quitting

  Emily Carr (2009). “Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr”, p.92, D & M Publishers

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