Not Asking For Perfection Quotes & Sayings

When you encounter another person ... it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it ... I am reminded of this precious instruction by my own great failure to live up to it recently ... — Marilynne Robinson

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

Time must be such a patient fellow to put up with the monotony of each moment. Each second ticking away with ungodly precision, reminding itself that it cannot escape its own perfection. And those wretched blue bells were like a pain in my side. I waited and waited for their ring and then I cursed them when they finally came and did not sing the number of rings that would signify the end to my struggles. Each second was like a weight being added to my shoulders, asking me why I had left comfort for starvation, certainty for uncertainty, security for freedom.
--From Of Mind Or Matter — Sreejit Poole

Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves. — Julia Cameron

And wow ... was that a lot of perfection to look at. Seven feet and three hundred and fifty pounds of perfection. While most guys - most guys being her brother, cousins, and uncles - would be lapping this up - pocketing numbers, getting girls to strip, and playing "who can get my kilt to rise" - Lock looked more like a bear cub cornered by hungry grizzly males. But what exactly did he expect in that outfit? She didn't want to imply he was asking for it but ... he kind of was! — Shelly Laurenston