“No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years.”

— Don Marquis

The Almost Perfect State (1921)
Context: No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who compose it can, somewhere between death and birth, have a perfectly corking time for a few years. The most wonderful governmental system in the world does not attract us, as a system; we are after a system that scarcely knows it is a system; the great thing is to have the largest number of individuals as happy as may be, for a little while at least, some time before they die.

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 "No matter how nearly perfect an Almost Perfect State may be, it is not nearly enough perfect unless the individuals who…" by Don Marquis?

Don Marquis 55

American writer 1878–1937

Related quotes

“Men could not think of THE ALMOST PERFECT STATE if they did not have it in them ultimately to create THE ALMOST PERFECT STATE.”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

The Almost Perfect State (1921)

“One can hardly imagine how perfect a constitution it took a few years ago to stand the assault of a doctor.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)
Context: You can remember, so can I, when the old allopathists, the bleeders and blisterers, reigned supreme. If there was anything the matter with a man they let out his blood. Called to the bedside, they took him on the point of a lancet to the edge of eternity, and then practiced all their art to bring him back. One can hardly imagine how perfect a constitution it took a few years ago to stand the assault of a doctor.

“In early times of Christianity, even those who used animal food themselves came to think of the vegetarian as one who lived a higher life, and approached more nearly to Christian perfection.”

George Salmon (1819–1904) mathematician and Anglican theologian

A Historical Introduction to the Study of the Books of the New Testament (London: John Murray, 1885; 4th ed. 1889), p. 203 http://archive.org/stream/historicalintrod00salmuoft#page/203/mode/2up.