Quotes & Sayings About Seeking Perfection

The human person finds his perfection in seeking and loving what is true and good. — Pope Benedict XVI

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

In order to deserve, we must pay our dues and steadily work for perfection. We must relish in struggle, and relinquish pride. We must dispel fear and seek enlightenment. We must shun division and honor love. We must know our hearts and seek to understand others. We must try, live, create, feel, grow and love. — Bryant McGill

It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their knowledge to all possible simplicity, so must it be in seeking to understand these visions. — Isaac Newton

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 though, outside the Exercises, we can lawfully and with merit influence every one who is probably fit to choose continence, virginity, the religious life and all manner of evangelical perfection, still in the Spiritual Exercises, when seeking the Divine Will, it is more fitting and much better, that the Creator and Lord Himself should communicate Himself to His devout soul, inflaming it with His love and praise, and disposing it for the way in which it will be better able to serve Him in future. So, he who is giving the Exercises should not turn or incline to one side or the other, but standing in the centre like a balance, leave the Creator to act immediately with the creature, and the creature with its Creator and Lord. — Ignatius Of Loyola

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that's death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn't have any fresh air. There's no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. — Pema Chodron

1. Today's reading gives us surprising news: our longing for perfection is not a fault but something that God has planted in every one of us. Since this desire for perfection is strong, we may end up seeking to fill it through trying to improve ourselves in some way, either physically, intellectually, or through doing for others. When this happens, we unintentionally create idols in pursuit of these goals. What are some areas where we try to attain perfection in our lives? Could some of these areas become idols to us? 2. Psalm 37:4 tells us, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." What desires does your heart want that might bring you true perfection in Christ, rather than the false perfection you often seek in your life? 3. Looking back on your life, what events or occurrences do you see as evidence of God bringing you closer to Him, or perfecting you in your walk with Him? — Sarah Young

There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace - these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death. — Frank Herbert

What is creative is the seeking of perfection - and not attaining it. — Semir Zeki

Perfection does not mean errorless . Real perfection starts with real intention and ends with delivery, all driven by seeking knowledge, trial & error and investing emotions. Whatever delivered after that is perfect . — Sameh Elsayed

A man can do his best only by confidently seeking (and perpetually missing) an unattainable perfection. — Ralph Barton Perry

I think seeking perfection in human affairs is a perfect way to destroy them. — Jaron Lanier

Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward the town to gather alms, and the two samanas recognized him solely by the perfection of his repose, by the calmness of his figure, in which there was no trace of seeking, desiring, imitating, or striving, only light and peace — Hermann Hesse

We've got to be long distance runners on the spiritual path. We want to run as fast as we can, but at the same time realize that if God isn't at the end of that 100 yards, we don't fall flat of exhaustion. We've got to have whatever rhythm it takes to be able to go on for incarnations until we find that state of perfection we've been seeking. — Goswami Kriyananda

Ash moved faster, spinning through the steps of his deadly dance as he pushed Samael to keep moving, moving, moving. She flowed in and around Ash like a fish darting through racing waters, her blade seeking where Samael would appear. Together, they drove Samael around the dome. They moved together, synchronized and flawless, all his experience and all her instincts melding into deadly perfection. Samael — Annette Marie

That got me thinking about the pressure we women and moms are all under these days. It seems as if the standards are so much higher than they were just a few years ago, mainly because of what we see whenever we look on the Internet. — Joanna Gaines

There's a considerable distance between seeking perfection and irretrievable haste, — Naomi Novik

You are only as powerful as that for which you stand. Do you stand for more money in the bank and a bigger house? Do you stand for an attractive mate? Do you stand for imposing your way of thinking upon others? These are the stands of the personality seeking to satisfy its wants. Do you stand for perfection, for the beauty and compassion of each soul? Do you stand for forgiveness and humbleness? These are the stands of the personality that has aligned itself with its soul. This is the position of a truly powerful Personality. — Gary Zukav

Seeking perfection just ends up creating ridiculous amounts of stress and disappointment. — Arielle Ford

Old Korean adage, "Even jade has flaws." Or, in other words: Nothing in life is ever perfect. — Alan Brennert

Perfection is a paradigm meant to keep us striving and learning and growing. Like a wondrous sunset, perfection may be beyond our reach, but it is within our view and well worth seeking after. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The two Samanas recognized him simply by the perfection of his peace, by the stillness of his being in which there was no seeking, no desire, no imitation, no attempts at being seen
only light and peace. — Hermann Hesse

For there is no perfect strike, no perfect defense, no perfect form. The word itself defines a state that cannot be improved, but such is not the case, is never the case with muscle and mind and technique. So there is no state of perfection, but to seek it is not folly, nay, for it is that very seeking, the relentless journey, which defines the quality of the warrior. — R.A. Salvatore

I've never believed in seeking perfection at the risk of losing everything. — Jean Chretien

There are no shortcuts on the quest for perfection. — Ben Hogan

Perfection is not to be attained, but to be pursued infinitely. — Abhijit Naskar

What makes you push the shutter has to do with seeking a kind of perfection, a harmony in the world. You are instinctively aware it's there, but you've got to be completely alert and quick and so deeply awake that it moves you. — Sylvia Plachy

Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. — Mike Yaconelli