A Quote by Harlan Ellison
Perfection. Excellence. What a passionate lover. But once having tasted the lips of excellence, once having given oneself to its perfection, how dreary and burdensome and filled with anomie are the remainder of one's waking hours trapped in the shackled lock-step of the merely ordinary, the barely acceptable, the just okay and not a stroke better.
Related Quotes
I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.
The pursuit of perfection is frustrating and a waste of time, because nothing is ever perfect.
The pursuit of excellence is commendable and worthwhile. Therefore strive for excellence not perfection.
Perfection, fortunately, is not the only alternative to mediocrity. A more sensible alternative is excellence. Striving for excellence is stimulating and rewarding; striving for perfection--in practically anything--is both neurotic and futile.
I have always looked at it this way: If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan.
PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic. The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed "Perfection," promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: "I don't agree with you," and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.
Just keep taking the next step and keep having excellence in the ordinary.
True perfection is unattainable, but if you chase perfection you will catch excellence!
Achieve some perfection [excellence] yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.
There's no such thing as Perfection. But, in striving for perfection, we can achieve excellence.
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
Choose to achieve perfection. We won't achieve it because perfection is impossible. But by pursuing perfection, we will achieve excellence.
Once you understand what excellence is all about... you see how that excellence manifests itself in any discipline.
And with a few moments like that, with doubt from here and there, and within ourselves we were just striving for excellence. We had somehow understood and felt that all the musicians who would come to the House later on, that all the singers, the big artists, were striving for excellence in their life and we thought a house for them, there’s no limit to the excellence it should have because it should match their strive for perfection
If you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. It makes you go into detail that you can avoid. It takes a lot of energy out of you but that's the only way you finally actually achieve excellence. So in that sense, being finicky is essential.
Demand perfection of yourself and you'll seldom attain it. Fear of making a mistake is the biggest single cause of making one. Relax - pursue excellence, not perfection.
-winter.webp)
I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.
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