“The maxim ‘Nothing avails but perfection’ may be spelt shorter: ‘Paralysis.”

Minute [brief note] to General Ismay, December 6, 1942, on proposed improvements to landing-craft.
In The Second World War, Volume IV : The Hinge of Fate (1951), Appendix C.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The maxim ‘Nothing avails but perfection’ may be spelt shorter: ‘Paralysis." by Winston S. Churchill?
Winston S. Churchill photo
Winston S. Churchill 601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874–1965

Related quotes

Florence Nightingale photo

“Give us back our suffering, we cry to Heaven in our hearts — suffering rather than indifferentism; for out of nothing comes nothing. But out of suffering may come the cure. Better have pain than paralysis!”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Cassandra (1860)
Context: Give us back our suffering, we cry to Heaven in our hearts — suffering rather than indifferentism; for out of nothing comes nothing. But out of suffering may come the cure. Better have pain than paralysis! A hundred struggle and drown in the breakers. One discovers the new world. But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore!

Joseph Joubert photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On Machiavelli (1827)

Martial photo
Barbara W. Tuchman photo
Kenneth Arrow photo
Herbert A. Simon photo
James Stephens photo

“Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it.”

The Crock of Gold (Charleston: BiblioBazaar, [1912] 2006) p. 27.

Related topics