Perfection Quotes

If you're going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

… when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected?

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such;… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution….It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still, and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.

We worship perfection because we can't have it; if we had it, we would reject it. Perfection is inhuman, because humanity is imperfect.

Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

The good is the enemy of the best.

The best is the enemy of the good.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Indiscriminate pursuit of perfection infallibly leads to mediocrity.

Excellence isn't an act, it's a habit

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.

Don't wait for perfection before you start. Start somewhere so you can have something tangible you can work to perfect.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Done is better than perfect.

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty!

You have to do it and do it, until you get it right.