A Quote by Henry James

Excellence does not require perfection.

Henry James

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Does Excellence Perfection Require

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Henry James
American - Novelist
April 15, 1843 - February 28, 1916

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.

Michael J. Fox

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.

Alan Kulwicki

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.

Ed Bliss

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.

Charlie Trotter

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.

Harlan Ellison

True perfection is unattainable, but if you chase perfection you will catch excellence!

Vince Lombardi

Achieve some perfection [excellence] yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.

Rumi

There's no such thing as Perfection. But, in striving for perfection, we can achieve excellence.

Vince Lombardi

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.

Vince Lombardi

Choose to achieve perfection. We won't achieve it because perfection is impossible. But by pursuing perfection, we will achieve excellence.

Vince Lombardi

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.

J. R. D. Tata

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.

Lloyd (Bud) Winter

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

Jørn Utzon

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.

Edsger Dijkstra

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.

Michael Sandel

Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through the disinterested performance of action.

Swami Vivekananda

A Quote by Henry James

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