"The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod."
Read quote
12 likes
Perfection quotes
Perfection
1.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Perfection
Browse quotes that often appear alongside perfection — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Perfection quotes (page 8 of 70)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even get the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand! And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection, and another hundred again to get the idea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth... we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome."
Read quote
12 likes
"Meditation is not an escape. Meditation is the acceptance of life in its totality, with a view to transforming it for the highest manifestation of the divine Truth here on earth"
Read quote
12 likes
"There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection."
Read quote
12 likes
"Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance."
Read quote
12 likes
"Perfection does not exist -- you can always do better and you can always grow."
Read quote
12 likes
"....try the mustard, - a man can't know what turnips are in perfection without mustard."
Read quote
12 likes
"The cruelest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection."
Read quote
11 likes
"We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent."
Read quote
11 likes
"All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."
Read quote
11 likes
"Religion becomes a state of mind achievable in almost any activity of life, if this activity is raised to a suitable level of perfection."
Read quote
11 likes
"Enlightenment does not ask you to be perfect; it simply asks you to find perfection right where you stand."
Read quote
11 likes
"There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age.... I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness—a beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade."
Read quote
11 likes
"Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves."
Read quote
11 likes
"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the base of our splendid failure to do the impossible."
Read quote
11 likes
"For the superior morality, of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is properly rather an inferior criminality, produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion."
Read quote
11 likes
"Perfection is almost an illness with me, but sometimes I have moments where everything is absolutely clear and you can feel, rather than think."
Read quote
11 likes
"Education is the manifestation of perfection already existing in man."
Read quote
11 likes
"Perfection is always infinite. We are the Infinite already. You and I, and all beings, are trying to manifest that infinity."
Read quote
11 likes
"It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection."
Read quote
11 likes