No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
—John Eliot, Ph.D.
Perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future. When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want. That type of self criticism is significantly deterring.
—John Eliot, Ph.D.
The idea of perfect closes your mind to new standards. When you drive hard toward one ideal, you miss opportunities and paths, not to mention hurting your confidence. Believe in your potential and then go out and explore it; don't limit it.
—Lois McMaster Bujold
[M]aybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
—Francis de Sales
To demand perfection is a sure way to be disappointed in everybody, for you will be bound to think ill of others.
—Salvador Dali
Have no fear of perfection—you'll never reach it.
—Unknown
If you'd like to be good at something, the first thing to out the window is the notion of perfection.
—Unknown
You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring.
—Unknown
We are all imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government.
—Unknown
Don't you know that every perfect life would mean the end of art?
—Robert Musil
Relationships always started with that heady, swoonish period, where the other person is like some new invention that suddenly solves all life's worst problems, like losing socks in the dryer or toasting bagels without burning the edges. At this phase, which usually lasts about six weeks max, the other person is perfect. But at six weeks and two days, the cracks begin to show; not real structural damage yet, but little things that niggle and nag. Like the way they always assume you'll pay for your own movie, just because you did once, or how they use the dashboard of their car as an imaginary keyboard at long stoplights. Once, you might have thought this was cute, or endearing. Now, it annoys you, but not enough to change anything. Come week eight, though, the strain is starting to show. This person is, in fact, human, and here's where most relationships splinter and die. Because either you can stick around and deal with these problems, or ease out gracefully, knowing that at some point in the not-too-distant future, there will emerge another perfect person, who will fix everything, at least for six weeks.
—Sarah Dessen in This Lullaby
Buddhism is not a refuge from life. It is life stripped bare and known most intimately. Zen doesn't make you a "better person." It helps you become fully human. My mentor was no model for how to behave perfectly but for how to experience completely. He never told me how to live my life. He just helped me become alive.
—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk
Some things are just perfect, even when they don't make any sense.
—Bella Andre in Come A Little Bit Closer
Any fool can love somebody who's perfect, somebody who does everything right. But that doesn't stretch your soul. Your soul only gets stretched when you can still love somebody after they've hurt you.
—Susan Elizabeth Phillips in Hot Shot
There is a field where all wonderful perfections of microscope and telescope fail. All exquisite niceties of weights and measures as well as that which is behind them, the keen and driving power of the mind. No facts, however indubitably detected, no effort of reason, however magnificently maintained, can prove that Bach's music is beautiful.
—Ursula K. Le Guin in The Dispossessed