Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
She had forgotten them all; forgotten Richard down in the mud, and the marquis and his foolish crossbow, and the world. She was delighted and transported, in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal; time and the dance.
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.
And in spite of everything, Ireland remains the brain of the Kingdom. The English, judiciously practical and ponderous, furnish the over-stuffed stomach of humanity with a perfect gadget--the water closet. The Irish, condemned to express themselves in a language not their own, have stamped on it the mark of their own genius and compete for glory with the civilized nations. This is then called English literature.
The revelation of the secret of water will put an end to all manner of speculation or expediency and their excrescences, to which belong war, hatred, impatience and discord of every kind. The thorough study of water therefore signifies the end of monopolies, the end of all domination in the truest sense of the word and the start of a socialism arising from the development of individualism in its most perfect form.
I do not think that there is any time in our history when things were perfect. I do not expect such times in the near future either. But I think every generation has to examine what needs to be done, what belongs to its peace and proceed. And so what needs to be done will change with time depending on the conditions, whatever the conditions happen to be. And they will not be the same for generation after generation.
Virgin Immaculate, perfect lover of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we ask you to obtain for us the graces we need to become true adorers of our Eucharistic God. Grant us, we beg of you, to know Him better, to love Him more, and to center our lives around the Eucharist, that is, to make our whole life a constant prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and petition to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Amen.
Society has put before you the ideal of a 'perfect man'. No matter in which culture you were born, you have scriptural doctrines and traditions handed down to you to tell you how to behave. You are told that through due practice you can even eventually come into the state attained by the sages, saints and saviors of mankind. And so you try to control your behavior, to control your thoughts, to be something unnatural.
How great is the path proper to the Sage! Like overflowing water, it sends forth and nourishes all things, and rises up to the height of heaven. All-complete is its greatness! It embraces the three hundred rules of ceremony, and the three thousand rules of demeanor. It waits for the proper man, and then it is trodden. Hence it is said, 'Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact.'
Whether or not enlightenment is a plausible goal for us is a vital question for our lives. If it is possible for us to attain such perfect enlightenment ourselves, our whole sense of meaning and our place in the universe immediately changes. To be open to the possibility is to be a spiritual seeker, no matter what our religion. Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal.
Patience-the ability to put our desires on hold for a time-is a precious and rare virtue. We want what we want, and we want it now. Therefore, the very idea of patience may seem unpleasant and, at times, bitter. Nevertheless, without patience, we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect. Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace.
Watching violence in movies or in TV programs stimulates the spectators to imitate what they see much more than if seen live or on TV news. In movies, violence is filmed with perfect illumination, spectacular scenery, and in slow motion, making it even romantic. However, in the news, the public has a much better perception of how horrible violence can be, and it is used with objectives that do not exist in the movies.
When we start understanding that all challenges are really opportunities to learn and grow and become all that we are becoming, which is all being guided by nature and her desire to maintain perfect balance, then what could be wrong? If there is nothing wrong, then the burden of humanity has been lifted from my shoulder and I'm free to be me - to play, to cry, to laugh, to work, to explore, to serve, to unfold and grow.
If you want to marry me, here's what you'll have to do: You must learn how to make a perfect chicken-dumpling stew. And you must sew my holey socks, And soothe my troubled mind, And develop the knack for scratching my back, And keep my shoes spotlessly shined. And while I rest you must rake up the leaves, And when it is hailing and snowing You must shovel the walk...and be still when I talk, And-hey-where are you going?
If I buy a luxury gift for someone I love, it's got to be perfect. The product has to be in perfect condition from the company. If I'm going to buy a luxury watch or luxury car or clothing for someone I love, it's got to be perfect, and they've got to handle it perfectly. They have to pack it perfectly. I want the people that I love to have that great experience, because you're paying so much, you should have it perfect.
To image the being of God towards the world, to be the priest of creation, is to behave towards the world in all its aspects, of work, and of play, in such a way that it may come to be what it was created to be, that which praises its maker by becoming perfect in its own way. In all this, there is room for both usefulness and beauty to take their due place, but differently according to differences of activity and object.
I think every woman in the world has to have a short black dress. That's what I always wear if I'm really rushing and I don't want to think. If you want to wear it during the day you can wear ballerina flats or sandals. And for the night you just put on some heels and and a necklace. That's kind of the statement dress of Chanel as well. But Chanel is put on a necklace and a little hat and that would be perfect for Chanel.
The difference between a path and a road is not only the obvious one. A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. It is a sort of ritual of familiarity. As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape. It is not destructive. It is the perfect adaptation, through experience and familiarity, of movement to place; it obeys the natural contours; such obstacles as it meets it goes around.
I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing.
Often the lack of clear direction and goals can waste away our time and energy and contribute to imbalance in our lives. A life that gets out of balance is much like a car tire that is out of balance. It will make the operation of the car rough and unsafe. Tires in perfect balance can give a smooth and comfortable ride. So it is with life. The ride through mortality can be smoother for us when we strive to stay in balance.
For most women being other-directed, focused on how other people feel and nurturing them, was (and can still be) a quality that girls were (are) heavily pressured to become. The unselfish or Self-less woman was (is) seen as ideal. The realization and articulation that the cultural ideal of the perfect woman was someone who had no sense of Self and was a key part of the angry energy that drove Feminism to its swift success.
God loves me, and that he has the perfect plan for me. His plan will take me through a lots of ups and downs, but if I stay faithful to him that in the end he will work everything for my good. Now when I play basketball, I don't play for anyone else, I only play for God. That's the type of purpose that he gave me, and once he gave me that purpose, is when I found my peace, and once I got my peace, that's when I got my joy.
Meditation has become a big part of my life these days. It's more about taking some moments for yourself to deep-breathe and focus your attention inward. This has really helped me because, as a perfectionist, I used to think that if I couldn't meditate in my idea of the perfect way, then it wouldn't work. I now meditate even if it is for three minutes while I'm sitting in the car. Every little bit helps to slow the system.
I like what I do. Some writers have said in print that they hated writing and it was just a chore and a burden. I certainly don't feel that way about it. Sometimes it's difficult. You know, you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think ... that's your signpost and your guide. You'll never get there, but without it you won't get anywhere.
He's brilliant. At first, I thought, 'Oh, is he going to be Hollywood stud-like?' But he's a really kind, wonderful person. He said to me one day early in the making of the movie, 'You know, I was kind of worried about you'. He thought I was going to be a perfect skin, which I am certainly not. It didn't take long for Leo to crack and see who I really am, and we became very close. but, I must say, he is absolutely gorgeous.
I've never considered soundtracks for what I write. Nor have I considered computer drawing or painting. As a painter, I'm still trying to perfect what I started out doing with brushes, pen and ink, paint, etc. The transition, for me, from typewriter to computer was a big step. I am now very comfortable with writing on a computer but it took awhile. Because I did make that big step I won't rule out what happens in the future.
I think Ive done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I havent yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe Id reached that peak. But Im 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, Ill be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.
We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults. We would have others severely corrected and will not be corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeases us, and yet we will not have our own desires denied us. We will have others kept under by strict laws, but in no sort will ourselves be restrained. And thus it appears how seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.
You say you are not happy in the Mission. That, in itself, is not a sign that God does not want you there. Perfect contentment is never to be found, in whatever place and condition one may be. This life is full of annoyances and troubles both of mind and of body; it is a state of continual agitation, which snatches peace of mind from those who think they possess it and eludes those who seek it. Did Our Lord lead an easy life?
There are no moments more painful for a parent than those in which you contemplate your child's perfect innocence of some imminent pain, misfortune, or sorrow. That innocence (like every kind of innocence children have) is rooted in their trust of you, one that you will shortly be obliged to betray; whether it is fair or not, whether you can help it or not, you are always the ultimate guarantor or destroyer of that innocence.
Much better than it has been all week. I got sick again this week, so I wasn't really able to breathe. I was on antibiotics (until Wednesday). This program was so great coming here. I felt more confident than I ever have all season, more calm, more relaxed, bending the knees. So even that program with the one mistake ... you can't be perfect all the time, but for me that was a great skate for me and I'm happy with how it went.
Certainly I'm participating in an already established and awesome tradition, but it's a tradition that sort of shoots up and through the mainstream in short bursts and pulses and then gets diluted. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson shot up and then got sucked back down underground under more entertaining and less radical versions of body and self - poetry and prose that posited bodies in more perfect union with good citizenship.
It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have a huge variety of needs and dangers.
There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.
The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand.
Hey Atticus, do me a quick favour before we go? its easy. Sure. What is it? Hold Granuailes staff for just a minute. You know, rest it on the ground so that its like a walking stick or something and the top of it is near your right cheek. Granuaile and I traded weapons to humor him and I stood as instructed. Thats perfect! Now say this like Sir Ian McKellen I am Atticus the White, and I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
All life is an experiment. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment. I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom. Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
An old French mathematician said: "A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street." This clearness and ease of comprehension, here insisted on for a mathematical theory, I should still more demand for a mathematical problem if it is to be perfect; for what is clear and easily comprehended attracts, the complicated repels us.
When it was offered [a role in The Flash] I just thought it sounded like the perfect thing that I would want to do. Then they announced it online the day after and I was terrified, because I hadn't read anything, I hadn't shot anything. What if I'm awful? What if they fire me on the first day? But what I discovered was a bunch of really happy actors who want to make the best show possible, because it's fun. Not for any other reason.
The first serious consciousness of Nature's gesture - her attitude towards life-took form then as a phantasm, a nightmare, all insanity of force. For the first time, the stage-scenery of the senses collapsed; the human mind felt itself stripped naked, vibrating in a void of shapeless energies, with resistless mass, colliding, crushing, wasting, and destroying what these same energies had created and labored from eternity to perfect.
Look at our culture. Look at the computer-enhanced people we compare ourselves to. Look at the expensive cars and trinkets we're all supposed to have. Look at how many people are wrapped up in that! Imagine how much money and worry we'd save ourselves if we stopped caring what kind of car we drove! and why do we care? perfection. But there is no such thing, is there? And if there is, then everyone is perfect in their own way, right?
Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.
There are some whose Karma is such as to enable them to develop the purely spiritual faculties first of all -- to overleap the astral plane for the time, as it were; and when afterwards they make its acquaintance they have, if their spiritual development has been perfect, the immense advantage of dipping into it from above, with the aid of a spiritual insight which cannot be deceived and a spiritual strength which nothing can resist.
...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane-just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
The cheats always have a way of justifying their behaviour - everyone else is getting away with it, so why shouldn't I? But because they're so reliant on the drugs - and the drugs are not always perfect, you're not guaranteed to peak at a big event - they don't have the confidence to look in the mirror and know that they can go out and give their best. If you're clean and you've prepared well for a race, that's where you have an edge.
There is a warning here for true pilgrims. Beware of the talker, but also be careful not to judge too quickly those whom God has blessed with both genuine grace and a fluency to speak of divine mercy in ways more eloquent than others. The proof is in the life-not a perfect life, but a life that both delights in divine truth and magnifies God, the only giver of the sovereign grace that always produces the truly fruitful, fragrant life.
Part of the reason the Savior suffered in Gethsemane was so that he would have an infinite compassion for us as we experience our trials and tribulations. Through his suffering in Gethsemane, the Savior became qualified to be the perfect judge. Not one of us will be able to approach him on the Judgment Day and say, ‘You don’t know what it was like.’ He knows the nature of our trials better than we do, for he ‘descended below them all.
Works of art are not so much finished as abandoned. Perhaps poems can be perfect. A short-short story might even be perfectible, as effective and enjoyable for one reader as the next. But novels and other book-length narratives are great rambling things that always contain some flaws. For works of any length, there comes a point when your continued tinkering won't improve the whole, but will just trade one set of problems for another.
Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.
I have accepted myself in a world that does not accept me, because I have learned - and more than any of the lessons of my accident, this is the one I wish I could teach everybody - that our hearts matter most. Your heart matters most, so be gentler and more patient with yourself, and their hearts matter most, too, so be kinder and more compassionate to others. It's a beautiful heart, not a perfect body, that leads to a beautiful life.
The constitution of human nature" teaches us not to expect "that the persons, entrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of a confederacy, will at all times be ready, with perfect good humor, and an unbiased regard to the public weal, to execute the resolutions of decrees of the general authority." "This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for," Publius argues, "It has its origin in the love of power.