This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Moderate skill in several arts is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any.
Perfection | Skill |
It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any.
Art | Better | Mediocrity | Perfection | Skill | Art |
David Swing, aka Professor Swing
The human soul is such a world. The truths of to-day, of yesterday, of the whole past are settling down upon it a golden rain from the hand of God, making the glorious wrappings of time and of the great futurity. Thus the dark facts of earth, its slavery, its suffering, its sickness, its calamities, its burned up cities, its solemn cemeteries of the dead, all may be trans formed into human spirit and make the soul come to heaven at last rich in its tenderness and love. The earthly knowledge is made into never dying power. Bulwer says, " Oh how much greater is the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of the whole globe !" And elsewhere he says, " Not in the knowledge of tnings without, but in the perfection of the soul within, lies the true empire of man."
Heaven | Knowledge | Man | Past | Perfection | Soul | Spirit | Tenderness | Vicissitudes | Truths |
A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.
Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
Goals | Means | Perfection |
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.
Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL
The perfection of art is to conceal art.
Art | Perfection | Art |
The perfection of means and the confusion of ends seems to be our problem.
Ends | Means | Perfection |
R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing
Perfection is something we should all strive for. It's a duty and a joy to perfect one's nature... The most difficult thing is love. A loveless, driving person that just competes in the rat race is far from perfection in my book.
Duty | Joy | Perfection | Race |
A man must be strong enough to mold the peculiarity of his imperfections into the perfection of his peculiarities.
Enough | Man | Peculiarity | Perfection |
Because of its increasing triviality, everyday life has gradually become our central preoccupation. No illusion, sacred or deconsecrated, collective or individual, can hide the poverty of our daily actions any longer. The enrichment of life calls inexorably for the analysis of the new forms taken by poverty, and the perfection of the old weapons of refusal.
Life | Life | Perfection | Poverty | Sacred | Weapons | Old |
Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler
When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.
Control | Perfection | Story |
Ray Kroc, fully Raymond Albert Kroc
Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald's. Everything else was secondary for me.
Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr
Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.
Man | Perfection | Sin |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is speaking to his young fledgling son who is learning to fly: You will begin to touch heaven . . . in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there. . . . To fly as fast as thought, to anywhere that is, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived. . . . The trick is to stop seeing yourself as trapped inside a limited body that has a forty-two-inch wingspan and performance that could be plotted on a chart. The trick is to know that your true nature lives, as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once across space and time.
Body | Heaven | Knowing | Learning | Nature | Perfection | Space | Will |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
There is such a thing as perfection...and our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth....Each of us is in truth an unlimited idea of freedom. Everything that limits us we have to put aside.
Perfection | Purpose | Purpose | Truth |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.
Perfection | Will |
Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly.
As you begin to eliminate your need for perfection in all areas of your life, you'll begin to discover the perfection in life itself
Life | Life | Need | Perfection |
Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.
Absurd | Perfection |