“Attention to detail and a perfectionist instinct, far from stimulating action, are character qualities that lead to renunciation. Better to dream than to be.”

—  Fernando Pessoa , book The Education Of the Stoic

Ibid.
The Education of the Stoic

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Attention to detail and a perfectionist instinct, far from stimulating action, are character qualities that lead to ren…" by Fernando Pessoa?
Fernando Pessoa photo
Fernando Pessoa 288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935

Related quotes

Cornell Woolrich photo

“What careful planning, what painstaking attention to detail, goes into extinguishing a man's life! Far more than the hit-or-miss, haphazard circumstances of igniting it.”

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) American author and screenwriter
Fernando Pessoa photo

“The superiority of the dreamer is that dreaming is much more practical than living, and that the dreamer extracts from life a much vaster and varied pleasure than the action man. In better and more direct words, the dreamer is the real action man.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 110
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A superioridade do sonhador consiste em que sonhar é muito mais prático que viver, e em que o sonhador extrai da vida um prazer muito mais vasto e muito mais variado do que o homem de acção. Em melhores e mais directas palavras, o sonhador é que é o homem de acção.

Tryon Edwards photo

“Thoughts lead on to purposes; puposes go forth in actions; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, pp. 114-115.

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism in one's thinking and can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. Or because he has some economic security, that he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. And that's the uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

David Heinemeier Hansson photo

“Workaholics don't actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just mean they're wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.”

David Heinemeier Hansson (1979) programmer, racing driver, creator of Ruby of Rails, 2012-2016 World Endurance Championship driver

Source: Rework

Herbert A. Simon photo

“Organizations and institutions provide the general stimuli and attention-directors that channelize the behaviors of the members of the group, and that provide those members with the intermediate objectives that stimulate action.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 100.

Anthony Bourdain photo

“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.”

Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Anaïs Nin photo

“It was a misunderstanding to stress the dream like quality of the novels. What I meant to stress was the interrelation between dream and life, between dream and action.”

Anaïs Nin book The Novel of the Future

The Novel of the Future (1969)

Marguerite Bourgeoys photo

“It seems to me that we do not pay enough attention to prayer, for unless it arises from the heart which ought to be its centre, it is no more than a fruitless dream. Prayer ought to carry over into our thoughts, our words and our actions.”

Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620–1700) French colonist and foundress

The Writings of Marguerite Bourgeoys, p. 169

Salvador Dalí photo

“One might think that through ecstasy we would have access to a world as far from reality as that of the dream. – The repugnant can become desirable, affection cruelty, the ugly beautiful, faults qualities, qualities black miseries.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote in 'Le phénomene de l'extase', in 'Minotaure' 1933; as quoted in Dali and Me, Catherine Millet, - translation Trista Selous -, Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 8001 Zurich Switzerland, p. 133
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1931 - 1940

Related topics