Quotes & Sayings About Our Imperfections

President George Q. Cannon encouraged us to pray for gifts of the Spirit that would countermand and eradicate our weaknesses: "If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will make us perfect. Have I imperfections? I am full of them. What is my duty? To pray to God to give me the gifts that will correct these imperfections. If I am an angry man, it is my duty to pray for charity, which suffereth long and is kind. Am I an envious man? It is my duty to seek for charity, which envieth not. So with all the gifts of the Gospel. They are intended for this purpose."37 Spiritual gifts are given to those who seek after them, and they are given to those whom the Lord can trust to use them to bless others. — Sheri Dew

Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or a small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredible lucky. — Brene Brown

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky. — Brene Brown

I wasn't always broken; we are all born pure. It is our journey that burdens us and leads us astray. Our mistakes that beat us down and cover us in guilt and shame, burying us a little more with each successive hardship. It is up to us to dig ourselves out, to come to terms with our faults, to embrace not only our imperfections but those of the ones we love, and to once again find the path we strayed from. — Madeline Sheehan

Our world is not an optimal place, fine tuned by omnipotent forces of selection. It is a quirky mass of imperfections, working well enough (often admirably); a jury-rigged set of adaptations built of curious parts made available by past histories in different contexts. [ ... ] A world optimally adapted to current environments is a world without history, and a world without history might have been created as we find it. History matters; it confounds perfection and proves that current life transformed its own past. — Stephen Jay Gould

Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can't accept their imperfections can't accept grace either. — Donald Miller

No one is perfect. Sometimes, it is the imperfections that make us more alive than those around us. It's the happiness of truly breathing and living in freedom of ourselves. Even though we may look broken to the world, there is always someone who sees us as we truly are, and helps us to create our whole being. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

He (Knox) handles the doctrines of election and justification as causes for bright joy in believers. 'Your imperfections shall have no power to damn you,' he writes to Mrs. Bowes, 'for Christ's perfection is reputed to be yours by faith, which you have in his blood.' 'God has received already at the hands of His only Son all that is due for our sins, and so cannot his justice require or crave any more of us, other satisfaction or recompense for our sins. — Iain Murray

Our divine perfection - not registered by the physical eye but only by the heart's knowing - is who we truly are. Our mortal imperfections - registered by the physical senses - are not who we truly are. Yet we keep trying, in love, to find each other's perfection within the world of imperfection. And it simply is not there. — Marianne Williamson

Though we best know and cannot deny our imperfections, it is not for us to lose our self-reliance and true manhood. — Nicolas Chamfort

To successfully tell the story, we had to be willing to let people see us as we really were; with all our weaknesses, fears, and imperfections. There are important lessons we learned from the experience that we would not have adequately relayed to the reader if we had been less bold." ~ Duane — Duane & Selena Pannell

Our imperfections are what create authentic connections with one another. — Henna Inam

Admitting that this job isn't always easy doesn't make somebody a bad mother. At least, it shouldn't. We're all on this ride together. We are not the first ones to ever accidentally tell our children to shut up, or wonder - just for a moment - what it would be like if we'd never had children. We aren't the first mothers to feel overwhelmed and challenged and not entirely fulfilled by motherhood. And we certainly won't be the last. Nothing can be lost by admitting our weaknesses and imperfections to one another. In fact, quite the opposite is true. We will be better mothers, better wives, and better women if we are able to finally drop the act and get real. Who are we pretending for, anyway? — Jill Smokler

Not everyone sees you the way you do. Sometimes our imperfections are what makes us special. - Tripp — Abbi Glines

...it's been amazing- not perfect, but amazing. I'm actually glad of the nonperfection because that has made our relationship feel more grounded, solid, and real than what I had (...), which just cruised blithely along, deceptively perfect, until it crashed and burned in a fiery wreck. — Sherri Rifkin

The process of facing and selecting our possessions can be quite painful. It forces us to confront our imperfections and inadequacies and the foolish choices we made in the past. — Marie Kondo

Wounds heal. Scars fade. Awful memories can be overwritten with better ones if given the chance. The little imperfections of our psyches become overshadowed by the people whose love we cherish because they cherish us despite our faults; physical, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise. This thing we call the human condition with all its bittersweet blind corners and senseless humor evolves from within ourselves and not because of some pre-ordained reverie we desire to cast in the constellations.
All in all it is what makes life worth living. — August Clearwing

As individuals, we also are apt to use the canon as a cannon. We invoke the stripling warriors of Helaman and the iron rod of Lehi's vision to ground our own version of unflinching obedience. Or we invoke the lessons of the Liahona to support our more spontaneous and flexible approach to gospel living. In America, some Mormons find Jesus' ministry to the downtrodden and King Benjamin's words about withholding judgment but not relief from the beggar to be apt endorsement of their preferred political policies. At the other end of the spectrum, some invoke the war in heaven fought over agency and consider the Mormon ethic of self-reliance to be adequate support for a different political outlook. Or, sometimes individuals even employ the cannon against the canon, citing inconsistencies and imperfections in the record as grounds for nonbelief in the principle of inspiration, one's faith tradition, or even God. — Terryl L. Givens

The logic of the system they devised was to mitigate the consequences of our real imperfections, not to celebrate our imaginary perfection. — Timothy Snyder

It helps parents to feel better if we remind them of our failures with them! And how they turned out just fine despite our imperfections ... We never get over needing nurturing parents. The more we comfort our own adult children, the more they can comfort our grandchildren. — Eda LeShan

It seems that nature, which has so wisely disposed our bodily organs with a view to our happiness, has also bestowed on us pride, to spare us the pain of being aware of our imperfections. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another. — Jane Austen

As you begin your tour of the United States, you may as well know that one American national trait which irritates many Americans and must be convenient for our critics is that we relentlessly advertise our imperfections. — Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

Within our perceived weaknesses and imperfections lies the key to realizing our true strength. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Because our expression is imperfect we need friendship to fill up the imperfections. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

if your children see you mess up every now and then, they learn that you are only human and thus they will be more likely to practice compassion and patience for others. On top of that, when they see you pick yourself back up afterwards, they then learn how to be confident and determined in spite of the hardships facing them. Being real with our kids is one of the best things we can do; and although it will showcase our imperfections as a person and as a parent from time to time, it helps our kids to understand the facts of the real world. When all is said and done, this is what will turn our kids into well-rounded people. — Sean P.I. Stewart

With all the imperfections of our present government, it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever did exist. — Thomas Jefferson

There are times when one feels liberated from one's limits and human imperfections. At such moments, we see ourselves there, in a little corner of our little planet, our eyes fixed in wonder on the cold and yet deep beauty of that which is eternal, that which is elusive. Life and death are fused together and there is no evolution, nor destination, there is only BEING. — Albert Einstein

We should seek after spiritual gifts. They can lead us to God. They can shield us from the power of the adversary. They can compensate for our inadequacies and repair our imperfections. — Dallin H. Oaks

The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evils; for our childhood is born of His fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, "Thou art my refuge, because Thou art my home". — George MacDonald

The praise we seek for our own virtues sometimes tempts us to flatter the imperfections of other men. — Norm MacDonald

Please hear me right now when I tell you that you're so fucking perfect in your imperfections that it actually is funny. I'm so serious when I say that. Our quirks - the things that we often look at with disgust - they are the things that make us unique and completely amazing! — Chris Grosso

Religion is about God's truth, but none of us can grasp that truth absolutely, because of our own imperfections and limitations. We are only children of God, not God. Therefore, we must not attempt to fit God into little boxes, claiming that He supports this or that political position. This is not only bad theology; it marginalizes God. — Hillary Clinton

There is only one person to whom we can expose our catalogue of grievances, one person who can be the recipient of all our accumulated rage at the injustices and imperfections of our lives. It is of course the height of absurdity to blame them. But this is to misunderstand the rules under which love operates. It is because we cannot scream at the forces who are really responsible that we get angry with those we are sure will best tolerate us for blaming them. We take it out on the very nicest, most sympathetic, most loyal people in the vicinity, the ones least likely to have harmed us, but the ones most likely to stick around while we pitilessly rant at them. The — Alain De Botton

We aren't supposed to strive for perfection everyday. If we were perfect, we'd have no need for Jesus. And it's through our imperfections that we really feel the pull toward our need for a Savior. So the imperfections serve a wonderful purpose if we'll let them. — Lysa TerKeurst

Creativity involves missteps and imperfections. I wanted our people to get comfortable with that idea - that both the organization and its members should be willing, at times, to operate on the edge. — Ed Catmull

To treat an imperfect brother (or sister) impatiently is to advertise our own imperfections. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

No one thing does human life more need than a kind consideration of the faults of others. Every one sins; everyone needs forbearance. Our own imperfections should teach us to be merciful. — Henry Ward Beecher

Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love. — Thomas Jefferson

We are humans who make wrong decisions, who act in strange ways, who have freckles and ailments. We are humans who are incredible in both our capacity to love and our resistance to hate. And in our imperfections we are beautiful. — Sarah Noffke

Our imperfections make us unique as surely as our strengths. — Toni Sorenson

A more realistic perception of our relation to others, in particular our similarities to them, injects a little humility into our self-serving biases. Admitting that we are disposable and irrelevant in the grander scheme of things may not be for everyone, but I find nothing more empowering. It should drown out your anxieties rather than inhibit your passions. Accepting your imperfections and limitations allows you to stop dwelling on past mistakes, and pushes you to enjoy making the most of every moment moving forward. — Erman Misirlisoy

At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silence pulse of perfect rhythm which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything else. — George Leonard

I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us. — Barack Obama

One of the best exercises in meekness we can perform is when the subject Is in ourselves. We must not fret over our own imperfections. Although reason requires that we must be displeased and sorry whenever we commit a fault we must refrain from bitter, gloomy,spiteful, and emotional displeasure. Many people are greatly at fault in this way. When overcome by anger they become angry at being angry, disturbed at being disturbed and vexed at being vexed. By such means they keep their hearts drenched and steeped in passion. — Francis De Sales

History balances the frustration of 'how far we have to go' with the satisfaction of 'how far we have come.' It teaches us tolerance for the human shortcomings and imperfections which are not uniquely of our generation, but of all time. — Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Sometimes our imperfections are what makes us special — Abbi Glines

There were many good years. Good decades, good centuries. We believed we were living in paradise. Perhaps that was our downfall. We wanted our lives to be perfect, so we ignored imperfections. Problems were magnified through inattention and war might have become inevitable if the Bore hadn't ever made. — Robert Jordan

IT'S OUR IMPERFECTIONS THAT MAKE US VULNERABLE, MAKE US INTERESTING. HOW CAN I MAKE MYSELF A BIT OF AN ASSHOLE AND STILL HAVE HUMANITY ABOUT IT? — Steve Coogan

Life is an aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection, which is self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or imperfections. — Mahatma Gandhi

We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favorite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers. Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections. — Henry B. Eyring

Our time and attention is scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe ... Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them.
Keep in mind that books, like art museums, are not always geared to the desires of the reader. Maybe we think we are supposed to like tough books, but are we? Who says? Many writers (and art museums) produce for quite a small subsample of the ... public. — Tyler Cowen

How did we become so prejudiced by our idiosyncrasies? ... We shared the same languages, but spoke of worlds so subtly different that language was not enough. Over time the big things were left unsaid; they gave way to the little things, those once-endearing imperfections that had somewhere become deal breakers. — Miguel Syjuco

The most perfect things in life are created by our imperfections, — Mia Clark

Even after all our frailties and failures, Christ Jesus can hardly wait to acknowledge us before the very angels of God. If He is that unashamed of us in all our imperfections, how can we be ashamed of Him, our Redeemer and Deliverer? So don't duck your head in shame under the coffee table. At one time or another, all of us have faced the temptation to shrink away from openly acknowledging Christ. But I've learned one of the best ways to get over our attacks of shame: do it over and over until it loses its intimidation. The more we practice, the easier it gets! — Beth Moore

Don't get upset with your imperfections. It's a great mistake because it leads nowhere - to get angry because you are angry, upset at being upset, depressed at being depressed, disappointed because you are disappointed. So don't fool yourself. Simply surrender to the Power of God's Love, which is always greater than our weakness. — Francis De Sales

In some basic way, it is our imperfections and even our pain that draws others close to us. — Rachel

No matter how hard we try, we are at best imperfect people. When we allow sin, we allow our imperfections to show. — Bidemi Mark-Mordi

So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born. — Edward Dahlberg

We all experience highs and lows in life. If you are feeling down right now, each second that passes is another moment to turn it all around. Feelings, good and bad, always come and go. The trick is to be grateful when your mood is high and graceful when it is low. When you stop expecting people and situations to be perfect, you can start appreciating them for who and what they are. Imperfections are important, and so are mistakes. We get to be good by learning from our mistakes and we get to be real by being imperfect. — John Geiger

Every storm has a brilliance, Dustin; has beauty when you look at it from a distance. It blurs all those incessant imperfections we seek to hollow out with each of our hopes. But when you step into its still center, when you see it's fury and its power, you also see its beauty; its grace. — Brandon Shire

God's forgiveness allows us to be honest with ourselves. We recognize our imperfections, admit our failures, and plead to God for clemency. — Jonathan Sacks

Our Imperfections Are What Make Us Perfect. — Lace Vintage

The miracle of the Atonement can make up for imperfections in our performance. — Gary E. Stevenson

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts. — William Shakespeare

Once in an age God sends to some of us a friend who loves in us, not a false-imagining, an unreal character, but looking through the rubbish of our imperfections, loves in us the divine ideal of our nature,
loves, not the man that we are, but the angel that we may be. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

In our dreams every man and woman are amazingly perfect, but in reality they have imperfections, so accept it without judgement. — Debasish Mridha

God doesn't work through us because we're flawless; rather, He works through us in spite of our imperfections. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

I have been photographing our toilet, that glossy enameled receptacle of extraordinary beauty. Here was every sensuous curve of the human figure divine but minus the imperfections. Never did the Greeks reach a more significant consummation to their culture, and it somehow reminded me, in the glory of its chaste convulsions and in its swelling, sweeping, forward movement of finely progressing contours, of the Victory of Samothrace. — Edward Weston

Perfect, you say? That was your problem. It is our imperfections that make us endlessly fascinating. — Kathryn Craft

All too often we bemoan our imperfections rather than embrace them as part of the process in which we are brought to God. Cherished emptiness gives God space in which to work. We are pure capacity for God. Let us not, then, take our littleness lightly. It is a wonderful grace. It is a gift to receive. At the same time, let us not get trapped in the confines of our littleness, but keep pushing on to claim our greatness. Remind yourself often, "I am pure capacity for God; I can be more. — Macrina Wiederkehr

If the pursuit of perfection is a way to prove our worth, in the end the pursuit will only prove our imperfections. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

This green place in which I stood with James turned slowly around us like a music box. All my memories returning, and all his. I could see and feel each of his days and he mine. Childhood songs, books read, hearts broken, arguments forgiven.The sweetness of these imperfections far outshining the regrets. Our lives overlapped as naturally as two blades of grass brushing together.
My pain forgotten, my clothes dry and clean, I pulled James close to me. As he lifted my chin, I felt no sensation of falling as when I had been Light touching one who is Quick. It wasn't the mere heat of a stolen moment in borrowed flesh. We touched now soul to soul, both of us Light. And when we kissed, the garden rocked, floating upstream. — Laura Whitcomb

Jiu Jitsu uses us to express itself, and the best thing we can do to is to become a vehicle capable of expressing Jiu Jitsu with all of its perfection minus our imperfections. — Chris Matakas

The more seriously we work on our own imperfections, the less we are judgemental of the imperfections of others. — Neal A. Maxwell

We love our country, not because it is perfect in everything, but it manages to touch our heart despite all its imperfections in everything! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Our own opinion of ourselves should be lower than that formed by others, for we have a better chance at our imperfections. — Thomas A Kempis

Knowledge can be a subtle curse. When we learn about the world, we also learn all the reasons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections. We become numb to the possibilities of something new — Jonah Lehrer

The Holy Spirit would lead us to think much upon our own sins . It is a dangerous thing for us to dwell upon the imperfections of others. — Ichabod Spencer

We can be confident in our dealings with the world when what the world sees is the outer person, with all the outer person's defences: the intimacy of a love affair is a different matter altogether. And who might not feel just the slightest bit insecure under the gaze of a lover
a gaze which falls on birthmarks, on blemishes physical and psychological, on our imperfections and impatience, on our human vulnerability? — Alexander McCall Smith

Most of us are painfully aware that we're not perfect parents. We're also deeply grieved that we don't have perfect kids. But the remedy to our mutual imperfections isn't more law, even if it seems to produce tidy or polite children. Christian children (and their parents) don't need to learn to be "nice." They need death and resurrection and a Savior who has gone before them as a faithful high priest, who was a child himself, and who lived and died perfectly in their place. They need a Savior who extends the offer of complete forgiveness, total righteousness, and indissoluble adoption to all who will believe. This is the message we all need. We need the gospel of grace and the grace of the gospel. Children can't use the law any more than we can, because they will respond to it the same way we do. They'll ignore it or bend it or obey it outwardly for selfish purposes, but this one thing is certain: they won't obey it from the heart, because they can't. That's why Jesus had to die. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

I think the body image thing, everybody can identify with that. In our culture there's just so much pressure and so much attention placed on the way we look. You just turn on the TV or flip open a magazine and there's people who don't look like any of us. I think this movie is like, finally, a celebration of reality and of our imperfections. We're not all a size 2 and we're not all a size 0, and you know what? That's OK, because some of us like to eat! — America Ferrera

Our love is perfect. And even though we may not be, our love creates a bridge that spans over our imperfections and joins us where it matters. — Steve Maraboli

There's a quote that has been said too many times by too many people: I must have done something right to deserve you in my life.

Perhaps despite all our wrong doings and mistakes, despite all our failures and imperfections, we have done something right, for something good still happens in life. — Marcella Purnama

The God we serve does not seek out the perfect, but instead uses our imperfections and our shortcomings for his greater good. I am humbled by my own limitations. But where I am weak, He is strong. — Rick Perry

We all have our imperfections. But I'm human, and you know, it's important to concentrate on other qualities besides outer beauty. — Beyonce Knowles

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. — John Lennon

Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. — Eric Hoffer

When you descant on the faults of others, consider whether you be not guilty of the same. To gain knowledge of ourselves, the best way is to convert the imperfections of others into a mirror for discovering our own. — Henry Home, Lord Kames

We either own our stories (even the messy ones), or we stand outside of them - denying our vulnerabilities and imperfections, orphaning the parts of us that don't fit in with who/what we think we're supposed to be, and hustling for other people's approval of our worthiness. Perfectionism is exhausting because hustling is exhausting. It's a never-ending performance. — Brene Brown

It's not worth our while to let our imperfections disturb us always. — Henry David Thoreau

Our imperfections are the bonds that hold us together. We might as well recognize them. — Irwin Shaw

We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create — John Lennon

Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self-image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them. — Tyler Cowen

A moment of care carries us away!
The fragrance of forgiveness elevates us
Imperfections are essentially universal
Divine love drives our desire. — Balroop Singh

Parenting has nothing to do with perfection. Perfection isn't even the goal, not for us, not for our children. Learning together to live well in an imperfect world, loving each other despite or even because of our imperfections, and growing as humans while we grow our little humans, those are the goals of gentle parenting. So don't ask yourself at the end of the day if you did everything right. Ask yourself what you learned and how well you loved, then grow from your answer. That is perfect parenting. — L.R. Knost

Life is full of many unpredictable changes ... Let go of chaos yesterday; cheerfully live for today, and look forward to tomorrow with greater possibilities ... It's our imperfections that make us perfect in our own unique ways — Oprah Winfrey

I am not perfect. Are you? Let us accept the fact that nobody is perfect. Let us learn to accept our imperfections as well as those of others. - RVM. — R.v.m.

The bonds that unite us to another human being are sanctified when he or she adopts the same point of view as ourselves in judging one of our imperfections. — Marcel Proust

Prayer brings a good spirit in our homes. For God hears prayer. Heaven itself would come down to our homes. And even though we who constitute the home all have our imperfections and our failings, our home would, through God's answer to prayer, become a little paradise. — Ole Hallesby