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Perfection
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“What is perfection, anyway? It's the death of creativity ... ”
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“In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfection.”
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“... perfectionism is the enemy of art. Since art is essentially divine play, not dogged work, it often happens that as one becomes more professionally driven one also becomes less capriciously playful.”
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“Realism, never perfection, is the key to wise choice-making.”
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“It is difficult to live with the pure. They do not condemn you; they forgive you. This forgiveness is more terrible than a judgment.”
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“What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
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“Radulfus had the wise man's distant respect for perfection, but no great expectation of meeting it in the way.”
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“Infallibility requires a great deal of charm to carry it off. Unfortunately, Albert was deficient in charm.”
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“You can't do such a lot and do it all so well and have much time left for the ordinary human feelings.”
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“Perfection bores me, in art, in music; most of all, in people. Luckily, perfection is rare.”
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“Sometimes I could quit paint and take to charring. It must be fine to clean perfectly, to shine and polish and know that it could not be done better. In painting that never occurs.”
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“... perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”
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“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”
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“Once more I am overcome by my own amazing sloth and unmannerliness. Can you please forgive me and believe that it is really because I want to do something well that I don't do it at all?”
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“To want to become angels while we are still on earth ... is ridiculous.”
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“This search for perfection — which is a search for divinity — is nothing more than the failure to accept our existence the way it is.”
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“So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere.”
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“Frankie never fumbled. She was competent even in her mistakes. When she blundered, she did so thoroughly, and with unflinching assurance. Confronted by this assurance, the rabbit of reason became parazlyzed: it was impossible to believe Frankie could be mistaken.”
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“... anyone extra good — we don't much like them and we don't trust them ... when we see someone who sets himself up as a model we know he must be hiding the bad part of his nature, suppressing it, and it's building up pressure. Most of us get rid of our bad impulses as we go along, but the model character can't, he just has to stand there on his pedestal until he blows up from internal combustion.”
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“Perfection is the campsite for those who have stopped halfway. / I've melted my silver for you.”
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“To have a reputation for being noble, she thought, is more confining than to be known as a wit. On the rare days when a comedian has no jokes, people pardon the lapse. There is no forgiving a saint's occasional day of sin.”
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“Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.”
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“This toxic striving for perfection is a female thing. How many men obsess about being perfect? For men, generally, good enough is good enough.”
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“There ain't nothing perfect. 'Cept maybe a new baby — .”
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“Striving for excellence is a positive quality. Striving for perfection is self-defeating.”
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“Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.”
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“'Done' is better than 'perfect.'”
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“Usefulness is not impaired by imperfection. You can drink from a chipped cup.”
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“Competition is about passion for perfection, and passion for other people who join in this impossible quest.”
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“The only perfection on earth is the perfection of the present moment.”
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“Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.”
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“Perfectionism doesn't make you perfect. It makes you feel inadequate.”
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“Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try harder.”
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“A dedication to perfection means that we are doomed always to be just a heartbeat way — from exposure. Perfection is unchanging; lives are ongoing.”
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“People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection.”