Thus with most careful devotion Thus with precise attention To detail, interfering preparation Of that which is already prepared Men lighten the knot of confusion Into perfect misunderstanding, Reflecting a pocket-torch of observation.
... the good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind.
Too much polishing and you spoil things. There's a limit to the expressibility of ideas. You have a new thought, an interesting one. Then, as you try to perfect it, it ceases to be new and interesting, and loses the freshness with which it first occurred to you. You're spoiling it.
Keep writing. Try to do a little bit every day, even if the result looks like crap. Getting from page four to page five is more important than spending three weeks getting page four perfect.
And if there be any addition to knowledge, it is rather a new knowledge than a greater knowledge; rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knownat all beforethananimproving, anadvancing, a multiplying of former inceptions; and by that means, no knowledge comes to be perfect.
I guess in America we're so sold on this ideal of the perfect, well-adjusted family that is able to confront any conflict and, with true love and understanding, work things through. I'm sure they do exist, but I never knew any of them.
Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Thus all things are subject to death, sorrow and suffering. I became aware that I too was of the same nature, the nature of beginning and end. What if I searched for that which underlies all creation, that which is nirvana, the perfect freedom from unconditioned existence?
Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to love the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love Him was happiness;--to love Him in others' virtues.
Our own intuition of what we're called to is reality speaking to us individually and perfectly. We have to listen to how the Infinite talks to us and leads us. Reality, Life the Infinite, God, has a way of leading us in just the perfect way, if we will only just listen to it.
Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony, both intellectually and emotionally.
You don’t have to be part of a club to know Jesus. And you don’t have to be part of a scene to know Jesus. And you don’t have to be perfect to know Jesus. You don’t even have to be semi-perfect to know Jesus. You just have to be willing, and open, and honest.
I am a socialist not because I think it is a perfect system, but half a loaf is better than no bread. The other system has been tried and found wanting