Quotes about Perfection

You can’t make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can’t make a perfect painting.

I think our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it’s a very mysterious thing, isn’t it?  I think it’s a response in our minds to perfection. It’s too bad, people not realizing that their minds expand beyond this world.

When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.

I hope I have made it clear that the work is about perfection as we are aware of it in our minds but that the paintings are very far from being perfect — completely removed in fact — even as we ourselves are.

In Japan, I took part in a tea ceremony. You go into a small room, tea is served, and that’s it really, except that everything is done with so much ritual and ceremony that a banal daily event is transformed into a moment of communion with the universe.

The tea master, Okakura Kakuzo, explains what happens:

“Tea ceremony is a way of worshipping the beautiful and the simple. All one’s efforts are concentrated on trying to achieve perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. Its beauty consists in the respect with which it is performed. If a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us."

When you're passionate about something, you want it to be all it can be. But in the endgame of life, I fundamentally believe the key to happiness is letting go of that idea of perfection.

There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect.

Nothing has to be changed, because all is beautiful -- that is enlightenment. All is as it should be, everything is perfect. This is the most perfect world, this moment lacks nothing -- the experience of this is what enlightenment is.

Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe you have forgotten, that's all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, that's all.

In any soul mate relationship, you will need to let go of the illusion that there is a perfect person waiting for you who will fulfill your every expectation and give your personality everything it desires once you are together. Do not expect your ideal soul mate to be someone who is always loving and easy to get along with, who agrees with everything you say or do, and who brings you a life of ease and comfort.

When we seek happiness through accumulation, either outside of ourselves--from other people, relationships, or material goods--or from our own self-development, we are missing the essential point. In either case we are trying to find completion. But according to Buddhism, such a strategy is doomed. Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection.

One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort.  A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. 

There are no perfect men in this world, only perfect intentions.

It is your birthright to have a life of meaning and purpose. Whether or not the people in your life have consistently celebrated your incarnation, you deserve to celebrate your existence.

Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it... it's just easier if you do

The teacher you need is the person you're living with.

Creating perfection will also create expectations for the future

Perhaps the highest human potential is only realized when we no longer require the world to conform to our fantasies of how it should be.

I'm not perfect.  I think more highly of snow and ice than love.  It's easier for me to be interested in mathematics than to have affection for my fellow human beings.  But I am anchored to something in life that is constant.  You can call it a sense of orientation; you can call it woman's intuition; you can call it whatever you like.  I'm standing on a foundation and have no farther to fall.  It could be that I haven't managed to organize my life very well.  But I always have a grip - with at least one finger at a time - on Absolute Space.

Originally, each human being is a complete and perfect existence.  At the same time, we are each living within the one great, large-scale perfection.

Forget perfect on the first try.  In the face of frustration, your best tool is a few deep breaths, and remembering that you can do anything once you've practiced two hundred times.  Seriously.

Seek perfection in simplicty.

Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

I know I missed the boat called perfection
but my errors are portals of discovery
and there are times
when a little madness sets me free.

I know I missed the boat called perfection
but my errors are portals of discovery
and there are times
when a little madness sets me free.

So what you ain't perfect. You will never be perfect, neither will I. Not because it isn't possible. In our heads, we will all reach some sort of perfection. But simply because it doesn't exist.

To be great you have to be perfect, to be okay you have to be human.

All of man’s ills are due to his lack of knowing God within him. The perfection of God’s universe is founded upon its perfection of Balance.
All of man’s ills are caused by toxic poisons generated in his body through unbalance affecting his power of control over the functions of his electric body.
Man, as an extension of God, is creator of his own electric body. He is master of his electric body to the extent of his knowing the Light of God in him.
... God says to man: »What I do, ye shall do«, but man is unbelieving for long ages.
(Walter Russell, The Message of the Divine Iliad, p. 129)

All of you are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.