Perfection Is Impossible Quotes & Sayings

Consistency is better than perfection. We can all be consistent-perf ection is impossible. — Michael Hyatt

An accumulation of pennies is a fortune. Day-to-day practice is perfection. A dream realized is nothing more than many steps taken toward the borders of once-impossible. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Your desire for perfection is the cause of anger. Leave room for imperfection. Perfection in action is almost impossible. — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Greed is a strange, strange sin.
All you want to do is acquire. Acquire money, acquire material, acquire time, acquire energy, acquire attention. The running mantra is "I want, I want, I want" but that quickly turns to "I need, I need, I need."
Suddenly there just isn't enough time for friends, for family, for anyone. Your goal is to acquire and to make sure what you acquire stays acquired. Your life depends on it. You don't see truth because the truth is shadowed by enormous homes, incredibly fast cars, in lavish spending. Your life no longer belongs to you, but you are blind to it all because those around you are seeking the same.
So you shuffle along at an impossible rate, and you pass the real world around you.
But what you'll come to realize, altogether too late, is that it's never enough.
It's simply never enough — Amelie Fisher

The reason I stopped modeling was because I was not pleased with trying to portray something that is impossible to reach. Even when I do photo shoots now for films, I am just not interested in trying to look my best all the time anymore. That pursuit of an impossible perfection seems ridiculous to me now. I would rather show my vulnerabilities or my doubts than try to be something that no one is. — Diane Kruger

Libertarians (like anarchists and Marxists) generally believe that human nature is good, though damaged by certain social institutions. Conservatives, on the contrary, hold that "in Adam's fall we sinned all": human nature, though compounded of both good and evil, is irremediably flawed; so the perfection of society is impossible, all human beings being imperfect. — Russell Kirk

Money is not indefinitely divisible. Even with the assistance of money-substitutes for expressing fractional sums that for technical reasons cannot conveniently be expressed in the actual monetary material (a method that has been brought to perfection in the modern system of token coinage), it seems entirely impossible to provide commerce with every desired fraction of the monetary unit. — Ludwig Von Mises

The ways of God "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."1 Holy Scripture never orders and never counsels us to do the impossible. By these words, then, the Lord Jesus does not command us to accomplish the very works and ways of God, which no one can attain in perfection. But He invites us to model ourselves on them, as much as is possible, by applying ourselves to imitate them. We can do this with the help of grace and we should do so. And as the Bishop John said, nothing is more suitable to man than to imitate his Creator, and to carry out, to the degree that he is able, the will of God. — Thomas Aquinas

Perfection is impossible. Trying to do your best is important, but loving yourself and loving others should come first. — AnnaSophia Robb

The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in social processes, as in economic processes, it is not only impossible to attain perfection but irrational to seek perfection- or even to seek the best possible result in each separate instance. — Thomas Sowell

The paradox of love is that to have it is to want to preserve it because it's perfect in the moment but that preservation is impossible because the perfection is only ever an instant passed through. Love like travel is a series of moments that we immediately leave behind. Still we try to hold on and embalm against all evidence and common sense proclaiming our promises and plans. The more I loved him the more I felt hope. But hope acknowledges uncertainty and so I also felt my first premonitions of loss. — Elisabeth Eaves

It is almost impossible to fall in love with majesty, power, or perfection. These make us fearful and codependent, but seldom truly loving. On some level, love can only happen between equals, and vulnerability levels the playing field. What Christians believe is that God somehow became our equal when he became the human "Jesus," a name that is, without doubt, the vulnerable name for God. — Richard Rohr

Choose to achieve perfection. We won't achieve it because perfection is impossible. But by pursuing perfection, we will achieve excellence. — Vince Lombardi

Perfection is an impossible destination — Tim Ferriss

Perfection is impossible without humility. Why should I strive for perfection, if I am already good enough? — Leo Tolstoy

All of us have failed to match our dream of perfection. I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. If I could write all my work again, I'm convinced I could do it better. This is the healthiest condition for an artist. That's why he keeps working, trying again: he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won't. — William Faulkner

When confronted with a situation that appears fragmented or impossible, step back, close your eyes, and envision perfection where you saw brokenness. Go to the inner place where there is no problem, and abide in the consciousness of well-being. — Alan Cohen

Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by need to full perfection brought.
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives;
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives. — John Dryden

N our perfection-obsessed, air-brushed society, it can be tempting to measure our self-worth against its set of impossible standards. However, organic beauty is in the flaws that make us vulnerable, human and fallible. We are here to learn, evolve and grow. We do not need to become perfect to be worthy of love, there is no such thing. We can not love others when we are withholding love and acceptance from ourselves. We can not criticize ourselves and then reach with open arms to give and receive love from others. It has to start from within, radiating outward. We need to learn how to be unconditionally loving, accepting and forgiving of ourselves, first, if we wish to forge healthy and loving relationships with others. — Jaeda DeWalt

Writers strive for the impossible: perfection. Even the universe is flawed. — Chloe Thurlow

Art is constant tension and release. That is where artists live, between the two, or at times, submerged in either. The challenge is never ending perfection is impossible, it could always be different, better, or worse. It's not important, just process and striving to be like the man who walks the trapeze maintaining balance. — Dave Liebman

The essence of peace is to merge two opposites. Therefore your notions should not scare you if you see another, who absolutely opposes you, and you presume that there is no chance for peace between you two. On the same token when you see two individuals who are exactly two opposites, never say it would be impossible for them to reconcile. On the contrary, and this is the perfection of peace to make it between two opposites. — Nachman Of Breslov

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals ... It is too readily assumed ... that the ordinary man only rejects [saintliness] because it is too difficult: in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. — Larissa MacFarquhar

The idea of sustainability can imply there is one perfect, unchanging future, if only we could work out how to get there. Resilience might be more useful, in that it assumes a dynamic environment and that perfection is impossible. You need to design systems to accommodate failure rather than eliminate it. By trying to be perfect, many visions of sustainability are quite brittle — Jamais Cascio

Olive Ann describes Sanna as 'a perfectionist and a worrier.' She is obsessed with the idea of finding happiness, and for her, as Olive ann wrote in her notes for the novel, 'happiness means being first with somebody, having perfect, loving children ... The theme of Sanna is disillusionment,' Olive Ann wrote. 'Her life is the pursuit of happiness and perfection, but she finds happiness and perfection impossible to obtain-her idea of happiness is constant joy, no changes. — Olive Ann Burns

In practice, sin's counterfeit of God's love is impossible to perfect, for perfection here ends in the void, the undoing of the bonds of creation. The soul that falls away into sin continues to love mortal beloveds, but its attachments lack measure, and so its love goes begging. It wanders about aimlessly in a 'wasteland of need' (regio egestatis). — James Wetzel

Competition is about passion for perfection, and passion for other people who join in this impossible quest. — Mariah Nelson

Perfection is impossible; just strive to do your best. — Angela Watson

Nowadays theologians aren't quite so straightforward as Paley. They don't point to complex living mechanisms and say that they are self-evidently designed by a creator, just like a watch. But there is a tendency to point to them and say 'It is impossible to believe' that such complexity, or such perfection, could have evolved by natural selection. Whenever I read such a remark, I always feel like writing 'Speak for yourself' in the margin. — Richard Dawkins

The thing about perfection is that it is unknowable, it's impossible, but its also right in front of us, all the time — Kevin Flynn

For Greek thought this was impossible since the essence of perfection is changelessness, and perfection cannot arise from the changes of human history. By contrast the Old Testament writers look forward to a glorious and terrible consummation of history. History has meaning in the sense that it has a goal. — Lesslie Newbigin

In the renunciation of one's own will to follow the will of God consists the self-renunciation commanded by the Savior, which is an indispensable condition of salvation and Christian perfection. In fact, this is so indispensable that unless this condition is satisfied, salvation is impossible, and Christian perfection even more impossible. — Ignatius Brianchaninov

Blood is thicker than water - and many see something ridiculous, or worse, about anyone who doesn't know this. In his discussion of Gandhi's autobiography, George Orwell expresses admiration for Gandhi's courage but is repelled by Gandhi's rejection of special relationships - of friends and family, of sexual and romantic love. Orwell describes this as "inhuman," and goes on to say: "The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals." To — Paul Bloom

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him. — Thomas Merton

Dwight Langley, the painter, is the pure exponent of the evil the play is attacking; he is, in effect, the spokesman for Platonism, who explicitly preaches that beauty is unreachable in this world and perfection unattainable. Since he insists that ideals are impossible on earth, he cannot, logically enough, believe in the reality of any ideal, even when it actually confronts him. Thus, although he knows every facet of Kay Gonda's face, he (alone among the characters) does not recognize her when she appears in his life. This philosophically induced blindness, which motivates his betrayal of her, is a particularly brilliant concretization of the play's theme, and makes a dramatic Act I curtain. — Ayn Rand

Perfection is the enemy of greatness. We as people are limited in the knowledge and information we have, so to say one has reached all of the highest standards of what is known as the conventional consummation of human excellence means there is nothing more they would have to learn. This of course, is impossible, for there are always new things to learn, and so perfection is unachievable and unattainable. — Nocturnus Libertus

You know one of the causes of modern despair is the fact that we have had proposed to us, from various quarters, an impossible perfection. — Morris West

If God is all-powerful, then the Devil must be nothing more than a darkness in the mind of God. But if the Devil is something real and separate, than perfection is impossible, and there can be no God ... except for the aspirations of fallen angels ... — Tad Williams

It is too bad that the public expects from me, always, perfection which it is impossible for me always to attain. I am not a machine. I am a human being. — Enrico Caruso

The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it. — Winston S. Churchill

Realizing who we are and what we may become assures us that with God nothing really is impossible. From the time we learn that Jesus wants us for a Sunbeam until we learn more fully the basic principles of the gospel, we are taught to strive for perfection. It is not new to us then to talk of the importance of achievement. The difficulty arises when inflated expectations of the world alter our definition of greatness. — Howard W. Hunter

People strive to achieve a certain form of perfection constantly and it's impossible because it's a form of opinion. I can think someone is pretty but the person next to me can think that they're unattractive. — Mila Kunis

The command "Be ye prfect" is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and he is going to make good his words. He will make us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature ... a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly. — C.S. Lewis

My mentality is like a Samurai: They used to every day work on their technique to make themselves almost perfect. Because perfection is impossible, but every day, you get closer to perfection. — Georges St-Pierre