Quotes about Imperfection

I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it is better to absolutely ridiculus than absolutely boring."

I know why familles were created, with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.

You look at the scratch and completely miss the diamond.

"There should be no suffering for any creature except for what they accept for themselves."  That was a thought to ponder.  Spirit Woman explained that each individual soul on the highest level of our being could, and sometimes did, select to be born into an imperfect body; they often came to teach and influence the lives they touched.  Spirit Woman said that members of the tribe that had been murdered in the past had selected prior to birth to live their life to the fullest but, at some point in time, to be a part of some other soul's enlightenment test.  If they were killed, it was with their agreement on an external level and only indicated how truly they understood forever.  It meant the muderer had failed the challenge and would be tested again someplace in the future.  All diseases and disorders, they believe, have some spiritual connection and serve as stepping-stones if Mutants would only open up and listen to their bodies to learn what is taking place.

To be perfect is to develop expanding imperfection.

Wabi sabi acknowledges three things: "nothing is perfect, nothing lasts, and nothing is finished." So, at first glance, it seems to celebrate the very thing that causes suffering. Yet, Basho found that wabi sabi led to enlightenment. So what is going on here? Basho himself studied Zen for several years and traveled in disguise as a Zen priest, yet he clearly became attached to people and places, wept openly beside ancient battlegrounds and other sites of romance or valor. He suffered gladly the pains of attachment and sympathy, identified with nature and its pathos. Either he was not very disciplined in his Buddhist practice, or he understood something about attachment and loss that we could do well to learn.

To sit in judgment of those things which you perceive to be wrong or imperfect is to be one more person who is part of judgment, evil or imperfection.

The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.

I regard it as an inelegance, or imperfection, in quaternions, or rather in the state to which it has been hitherto unfolded, whenever it becomes or seems to become necessary to have recourse to x, y, z, etc..

With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labor from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eyewitnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but I shall be content if it is judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it. My history has been composed to be an everlasting possession, not the showpiece of an hour.

It is better to aim at perfection and miss, than to aim at imperfection and hit it

In every country where man is free to think and to speak, difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.

It is a great imperfection to complain unceasingly of little things.

When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world - no matter how imperfect - becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.

Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world.

The universe exists under a reign of eternal law, surpassing the imperfect laws of human government. Such orderliness, such domination by law, imply intelligent planning and purpose. Nothing happens of itself. Nowhere, in the age-old experience of man, has continued order been found except as the product of intelligent direction.

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.

He in whom the love of truth predominates . . . submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion; but he is a candidate for truth . . . and respects the highest law of his being.

We all faced painful ethical challenges before we even knew how to spell our names. There were tough choices. Tradeoffs. Confusing signals regarding how to live one's life. And here we are now, today, still struggling. Still trying to sort things out. Still trying to work our way through life effectively. About the only thing that has changed is the scope of the problem. There's more at stake now. And we're in a position, as grownups, to do a lot more-good or bad-for ourselves, our organization, our world. But we still must wrestle with our imperfect ethics.

What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge of Him, is His servant - the man who makes Christ a teacher of his intelligence and the guide of his soul - the man who obeys Christ as far as he has been able to understand him. . . . I would know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of what He could do.

Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them.

Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.

We learn as much by others' failings as by their teachings. Examples of imperfection is just as useful for achieving perfection as are models of competence and perfection.

In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

There is a state of perfect peace with God which can be attained under imperfect obedience.

The universe exists under a reign of eternal law, surpassing the imperfect laws of human government. Such orderliness, such domination by law, imply intelligent planning and purpose. Nothing happens of itself. Nowhere, in the age-old experience of man, has continued order been found except as the product of intelligent direction.

Sir William Blackstone, the great English jurist, writing in his Commentaries on the Laws of England in 1769, was most explicit in emphasizing the weakness of man's nature. As he observed: ". . . if our reason were always, as in our first ancestor before his transgression, clear and perfect,unruffled by passions, unclouded by prejudice, unimpaired by disease or intemperance, the task would be pleasant and easy; we should need no other guide but this. But every man now finds the contrary in his own experience; that his reason is corrupt, and his understanding full of ignorance and error. This has given manifold occasion for the benign interposition of divine Providence, which in compassion to the frailty, the imperfection, and the blindness of human reason, hath been pleased at sundry times and in divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws by an immediate and direct revelation. The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law . . ."

Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.