Aim For Perfection Quotes & Sayings

Brethren, happiness is not our being's end and aim. The Christian's aim is perfection, not happiness; and every one of the sons of God must have something of that spirit which marked his Master. — Frederick William Robertson

Don't aim for perfection. Aim for progress. Learn to slow the process down when your adrenaline gets pumping. — Kerry Patterson

Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer, Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. — Sri Aurobindo

If you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. It has its drawbacks but being finicky is essential. — J.R.D. Tata

It seems symbolic of this all-pervading unpredictability that those engaged in the perfection of the means of destruction have finally brought about a level of technical development where their aim, namely warfare, is on the point of disappearing altogether. — Hanna Arendt

Not perfection as a final goal, but the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of living. — John Dewey

The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth. — Oscar Wilde

You're after perfection,'Matt said.
'Is that so awful?'
'No, it's not, but if you aim for perfection, you've got to be ready to take the consequences of not getting it and one of those is ending up with no one. — Tim Relf

For the Stoics, however, the near impossibility of becoming a sage is not a problem. They talk about sages primarily so they will have a model to guide them in their practice of Stoicism. The sage is a target for them to aim at, even though they will probably fail to hit it. The sage, in other words, is to Stoicism as Buddha is to Buddhism. Most Buddhists can never hope to become as enlightened as Buddha, but nevertheless, reflecting on Buddha's perfection can help them gain a degree of enlightenment. — William B. Irvine

Don't aim for perfection. Evolution, and life, only happen through mistakes. 31. — Matt Haig

When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target. — Geoffrey Fisher

Always aim at perfection for only then will you achieve excellence — J.R.D. Tata

Sculpture does not reject resemblance, of which, indeed, it has need. But resemblance is not its first aim.
What it is looking for, in its periods of greatness, is the gesture, the expression, or the empty stare which
will sum up all the gestures and all the stares in the world. Its purpose is not to imitate, but to stylize and
to imprison in one significant expression the fleeting ecstasy of the body or the infinite variety of human
attitudes. Then, and only then, does it erect, on the pediments of teeming cities, the model, the type, the
motionless perfection that will cool, for one moment, the fevered brow of man. The frustrated lover of
love can finally gaze at the Greek caryatides and grasp what it is that triumphs, in the body and face of the
woman, over every degradation — Albert Camus

Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker's work shows that setting obtainable goals is key to happiness. Instead of perfection, we should aim for sustainable and fulfilling. — Sheryl Sandberg

In wishing to know ourselves fully, we must forget our quest for gain and seek only completion. At a certain point in our development, we no longer even seek to become Mystic, Magister, Sorcerer, or Witch: we seek only our own perfection in the wholeness of our Will, in the joining of light with dark and strength with love. We are varied and gorgeous yet pure of heart. Our aim is this: to know ourselves and to know the world. — T. Thorn Coyle

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person. — David D. Burns

An aimless life is always a troubled life. Every individual should have an aim. But do not forget that the quality of your aim will depend the quality of your life. Your aim should be high and wide, generous and disinterested; this will make your life precious to yourself and to others. Whatever your ideal, it cannot be perfectly realized unless you have realized perfection in yourself. — Sri Aurobindo

For since men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others, and yet are unable to adhere exactly to those paths which others have taken, or attain to the virtues of those whom they would resemble, the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour. Acting in this like the skilful archer, who seeing that the object he would hit is distant, and knowing the range of his bow, takes aim much above the destined mark; not designing that his arrow should strike so high, but that flying high it may alight at the point intended. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Don't think you are unstoppable or foolproof. Don't think that the only way your business will work is through perfection. Don't aim for perfection. Aim for success. — Eike Batista

God's goodness will not mean a spoiling indulgence; [H]is aim need not be our ease so much as our perfection. — Jocelyn Gibb

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

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved. — W. Somerset Maugham

But on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies, their hand is mended by the endevour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible — Benjamin Franklin

The aim of every hierarchy is always to imitate God so as to take on His form ... the task of every hierarchy is to receive and to pass on undiluted purification, the divine light, and the understanding which brings perfection. — Maximus The Confessor

Let these 2 quotes sink in. In tandem together.

"A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves as something to aim at." - Bruce Lee

"Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi

The key here is thing to take away from the tandem of these quotes is that even those you will never achieve perfection, the fact that you will aim towards unfathomable goals you will along the journey catch greatness. — Matthew Donnelly

What is the purpose for which Masonry exists? Its ultimate purpose is the perfection of humanity. Mankind it self is still in a period of youth. We are only now beginning to acquire a consciousness of the social aim of civilization, which is man's perfection. Such perfection can never end with physical perfection, which is only the means to the end or spiritual perfection. — Albert Pike

The maxims tell you to aim at perfection, which is well; but it's unattainable, all the same. — Bayard Taylor

The yogic scriptures paint a picture of perfection, and perfection can be your aim, but I can tell you sad stories about myself and others who have entered into a state of premature holiness with unpleasant consequences. — Gudjon Bergmann

Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. The task is to find it, develop it & use it. The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use. — Sri Aurobindo

The ultimate aim of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants. — Gichin Funakoshi

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. - Chesterfield. — Orison Swett Marden

No matter what measures are taken, doctors will sometimes falter, and it isn't reasonable to ask that we achieve perfection. What is reasonable is to ask that we never cease to aim for it. — Atul Gawande

Don't aim for perfect. Aim for complete. Perfection is an unattainable illusion. — Lisa Genova

To live for others as a definite self-conscious aim was not his creed. It was not the basis of his creed. When he says, 'Forgive your enemies,' it is not for the sake of the enemy, but for one's own sake that he says so, and because love is more beautiful than hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor,' it is not of the state of the poor that he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that wealth was marring. In his view of life he is one with the artist who knows that by the inevitable law of self-perfection, the poet must sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make the world a mirror for his moods, as surely and as certainly as the hawthorn must blossom in spring, and the corn turn to gold at harvest-time, and the moon in her ordered wanderings change from shield to sickle, and from sickle to shield. — Oscar Wilde

The reason for the existence of the perfection conjured up in these fourteen lines is that it possesses ... the authorization to form a message that appeals from within itself. This power of appeal is exquisitely evident in the object evoked here. The perfect thing is that which articulates an entire principle of being. The poem has to perform no more and no less than to perceive the principle of being in the thing and adapt it to its own existence - with the aim of becoming a construct with an equal power to convey a message. — Peter Sloterdijk

Aim at perfection and nothing less. Need the best. Deserve the best. Those who say it's not possible are the people who decided to settle. — Behdad Sami

Imperfection is an end. Perfection is only an aim. — Ivor Cutler

The future life is where we will go on helping to bring the universe to perfection, which is God's grand ultimate aim. [The purpose of life] is to help God run the universe. Everyone in that better land will be busy all the time, and the environment will be perfect all the time for doing the work which God assigns to all. — Edwin Markham

If we would aim at perfection in any thing, simplicity must not be overlooked. — Henry David Thoreau

I don't aim for perfection. But I do want to try and come up with something interesting. — Kate Bush