
“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
Source: A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906), Ch. III, p. 83
“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775); Jefferson composed the first draft of this document, but the final work was done by John Dickinson, working with his original draft. Full text online http://www.nationalcenter.org/1775DeclarationofArms.html
1770s
"Another Perfect Catastrophe", The Ponzi Scheme (May 5, 1998).
Lyrics, Firewater
As quoted in Hindu Psychology : Its Meaning for the West (1946) by Swami Akhilananda, p. 204
“Don't be afraid of perfection. You will never attain it!”
Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 44
Source: 1960s, Economics As A Moral Science, 1969, p. 12
Quote of Mondrian in 'Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit', Piet Mondriaan, in 'De Stijl' III, 1920, p. 75
1920's