A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

W. Somerset Maugham

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Apt Defect Dull Grave Perfection

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W. Somerset Maugham
British - Novelist
January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965

Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens to pass, but it is also true that every defect is allied to a perfection.

Arthur Schopenhauer

No one has ever explained why it is that parents and guardians consider dull people such safe matrimonial investments for their young charges. Even granting the unsound assumption that dull people are more apt to be content with their own matrimonial fetters, they are certainly more apt to be the cause of discontent in others.

Alice Duer Miller

Oh the grave!--the grave!--It buries every error--covers every defect--extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him!

Washington Irving

Peter was dull; he was at first Dull; - Oh, so dull - so very dull! Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed - Still with his dulness was he cursed - Dull -beyond all conception - dull.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect, it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without a doubt, one of the things which keeps us from attaining perfection is our tongue. When one has reached the point of no longer committing faults in speech, he has surely reached perfection, as was said by the Holy Spirit. The worst defect in talking is talking too much. Hence, in speech be brief and virtuous, brief and gentle, brief and simple, brief and charitable, brief and amiable.

Saint Francis de Sales

Perfection, in anything, is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection.

Colleen McCullough

Idiocy is the female defect ... It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy.

Rebecca West

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies.

Noam Chomsky

If a lack of empirical foundations is a defect of the theory of logical probability, it is also a defect of deductive logic.

David Stove

Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.

W. Somerset Maugham

I think when you're an adult you start to like the very things that make you different. If you obsess about some defect, you make it obvious to everyone, and suddenly everyone is staring at just that defect. It's always like that. The more you hide something, the more it shows. But when you accept your defect, suddenly no one on earth sees it anymore.

Audrey Tautou

There is also a perfection of degrees, by which a person performs all the commands of God, with the full exertion of all his powers, without the least defect. This is what the law of God requires, but what the saints cannot attain to in this life.

Charles Buck

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: It needs a driver. General, your bomber is powerful. It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant. But it has one defect: It needs a mechanic. General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think.

Bertolt Brecht

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Quote by W. Somerset Maugham

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