“The more perfect a thing is, the more susceptible to good and bad treatment it is.”
“The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.”
“The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.”
“We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.”
“Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solitude is the enemy of well-being.”
“I have always suspected that correctness is the last refuge of those who have nothing to say.”
“One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.”
“You can spend a lifetime, and, if you're honest with yourself, never once was your work perfect.”
“Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
“If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself.”
“Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.”
“''Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it,'' said the Philosopher.”
“Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands... but English women only hope to find in their butlers.”
“No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.”
“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.”
“Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.”
“I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything.”
“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.”
“I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active --not more happy --nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.”
“Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.”
“Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.”
“It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.”