Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary
If This Is a Man (1947)
Context: Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition, which is opposed to everything infinite. Our ever-insufficient knowledge of the future opposes it: and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and and in the other, uncertainty of the following day. The certainty of death opposes it: for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief. The inevitable material cares oppose it: for as they poison every lasting happiness, they equally assiduously distract us from our misfortunes and make our consciousness of them intermittent and hence supportable.
1911 - 1940, Notes on Painting - Edward Hopper (1933)
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (2012)
Context: The peace of our world is indivisible. As long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk. It may be questioned whether all negative forces could ever be removed. The simple answer is: “No!” It is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative. Absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal. But it is one towards which we must continue to journey, our eyes fixed on it as a traveller in a desert fixes his eyes on the one guiding star that will lead him to salvation. Even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder.
“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”
Source: Hear the Wind Sing
“Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.”
“Perfect health, like perfect beauty, is a rare thing; and so, it seems, is perfect disease.”
Infertility Counseling: A Comprehensive Handbook for Clinicians - Page 179 by Linda Hammer Burns, Sharon N. Covington - Medical - 2000.
Collected Works
Source: The One-Straw Revolution (1975), Chapter 3, p. 119
