Top 100 Imperfectly Quotes
#1. There is no shortcut to life. To the end of our days, life is a lesson imperfectly learned.
Harrison Salisbury
#2. Thus the sun which possesses light perfectly, can shine by itself; whereas the moon which has the nature of light imperfectly, sheds only a borrowed light.
Thomas Aquinas
#3. Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored
Bertrand Russell
#4. [A]n unpleasant nest of nasty, materialistic and aggressive people, careless of the rights of others, imperfectly democratic at home though quick to see the minor slaveries of others, and greedy without end.
Isaac Asimov
#5. And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.
Joshua Reynolds
#6. Well, with the French language, which I understood and spoke, however imperfectly, and read in great quantities, at certain times, the matter I suppose was slightly different from either Latin or Greek.
Robert Fitzgerald
#7. Great men taken up in any way are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man without gaining something by him.
Thomas Carlyle
#9. Things done imperfectly still bless our lives
Marla Cilley
#10. He forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
#11. PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.
Ambrose Bierce
#12. Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
William Wordsworth
#13. We may love imperfectly, we may love blindly, but love we must.
WARS OF THE FLESH
Germaine Shames
#14. Man is a marble piece; unlike Michelangelo's masterpieces, man is unconsciously carved and imperfectly shaped by the nature!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#15. So, you see, a man can love you, but only imperfectly. It is God alone who can be God.
Melanie Dickerson
#16. We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.
Rick Warren
#17. These flattering mirrors reflect imperfectly what is within; the countenance is often a gay deceiver. What defects of mind lie hidden under its beauty! What fair exteriors conceal base souls!
Pierre Corneille
#18. Though the Life Force supplies us with its own purpose, it has no other brains to work with than those it has painfully and imperfectly evolved in our heads.
George Bernard Shaw
#19. Far better to live your own path imperfectly than to live another's perfectly.
Anonymous
#20. Creeds are definitions of what it means to be a Christian. They are fences that, albeit imperfectly, seek to separate sheep from goats.
R.C. Sproul Jr.
#21. As I grew up I realized, though imperfectly, that I was different from other people, and that the way of life in my home was different from that in the homes of others ... This stimulated me to introspection and strange mental questionings.
John George Haigh
#22. Much that is natural, to the will must yield.
Men manufacture both machine and soul,
And use what they imperfectly control
To dare a future from the taken routes.
Thom Gunn
#23. You don't love perfectly without first loving imperfectly.
Frederick Lenz
#24. Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#25. The science of the modern school ... is in effect ... the acquisition of imperfectly analyzed misstatements about entrails, elements, and electricity ...
George Herbert
#26. Nothing that has ever been thought and said with a clear mind and pure ethical strength is totally in vain; even if it comes froma weak hand and is imperfectly formed, it inspires the ethical spirit to constantly renewed creation.
Stefan Zweig
#27. It is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused; the understanding is not.
Ben Jonson
#28. And my mother always knew that, hence her Nikon raised high and pointed right into the mirror. She sensed that by documenting her own body, she was preserving her history. Beautifully. Nakedly. Imperfectly. Her private experiment made way for my public one.
Lena Dunham
#29. The Bhagavad Gita
that ancient Indian Yogic text
says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#30. The best doctrine may become the worst, if imperfectly understood, erroneously interpreted, or superstitiously followed.
Anna Leonowens
#31. This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly.
Elizabeth Strout
#32. In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few.
Samuel Johnson
#33. Medical science is as yet very imperfectly differentiated from common cure-mongering witchcraft
George Bernard Shaw
#34. Whatever belonging to the region of thought and feeling is uttered in words, is of necessity uttered imperfectly. For thought and feeling are infinite, and human speech, although far-reaching in scope, and marvelous in delicacy, can embody them after all but approximately and suggestively.
George MacDonald
#35. The singing of the songs of Zion, though imperfectly, with the inspiration of God, will touch the hearts of the honest more effectively than if sung well without the Spirit of God.
Heber J. Grant
#36. But if we say that labels have any meaning, when we talk about the nature of a philosophy or a religion, we must describe it according to its recognized ideal state, not according to how some people may be imperfectly practicing it.
Alexander Pierce
#38. Don't judge Christ by those of us who imperfectly bear his name.
Philip Yancey
#39. Beauty is a miracle of things going together imperfectly.
Anne Lamott
#40. It is astonishing how much enjoyment one can get out of a language that one understands imperfectly. - Basil Gildersleeve D
Ann Patty
#41. Presenting leadership as a list of carefully defined qualities (like strategic, analytical, and performance-oriented) no longer holds. Instead, true leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed ... Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.
Sheryl Sandberg
#42. Why should I be perfect.. when I'm already imperfectly perfect. And that's what is unique and perfect about me.
Abhishek Kumar
#43. Better to complete a small task well, than to do much imperfectly.
Plato
#44. The man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic
the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done.
Theodore Roosevelt
#45. Elinor placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his mother's account; and it was happy for her that he had a mother whose character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse for every thing strange on the part of her son.
Jane Austen
#46. There was still the temptation to believe the world was a mere trap for human sin. But sin, the way he saw it, was only the failure of an imperfectly made being to keep a perfect law.
Matthew Pearl
#48. I do beseech you- Though I perchance am vicious in my guess , that your wisdom yet From one that so imperfectly conjects Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
William Shakespeare
#49. Vietnam was a noble cause imperfectly pursued
Ronald Regan
#50. Its best to live imperfectly happy living a life of your own choice than to imitate someone else and be a plastic doll.
Upasana Banerjee
#51. Amber casts an infinity of shadows, and my Avalon had cast many of its own, because of my presence there. I might be known on many earths that I had never trod, for shadows of myself had walked them, mimicking imperfectly my deeds and my thoughts.
Roger Zelazny
#52. The secrets of evolution are death and time - the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.
Carl Sagan
#53. However imperfectly, subsidies for the poor do actually reduce hunger, ease suffering and create opportunity, while subsidies for the rich result in more private jets and yachts. Would we rather subsidize opportunity or yachts? Which kind of subsidies deserve more scrutiny?
Nicholas Kristof
#54. The truth is that civilization does not protect us from wild animals. It attempts, however imperfectly, to protect us from ourselves.
Michael Crichton
#55. An imperfectly remembered life is a useless treachery. Every day, more fragments of the past roll around heavily in the chambers of an empty brain, shedding bits of color, a sentence or a fragrance, something that changes and then disappears. It drops like a stone to the bottom of the cave.
Barbara Kingsolver
#56. The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.
Aldous Huxley
#57. We have had bird's-eye views seen by mind's eye imperfectly. Now we will have nothing less than the tracings of nature itself, reflected on the plate.
Nadar
#58. I root myself and my worship curation in the knowledge that because God is the ultimate creator, then everything we do imperfectly but sincerely reflects that ultimate creative act and its originator.
Jonny Baker
#59. I get to tell my truth. I get to seek meaning and realization. I get to live fully, wildly, imperfectly. That's why I'm alive. And all I actually have to offer as a writer is my version of life. Every single thing that has happened to me is mine.
Anne Lamott
#60. She's not perfect. I'm not perfect. But together, we're imperfectly perfect for each other.
Michelle Smith
#61. INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
Ambrose Bierce
#62. We don't know what drives and sustains us, only that we are most miserably driven and, imperfectly, sustained.
John Barth
#63. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
Albert Einstein
#64. Marx, however imperfectly he worked out the details, set himself the task of discovering the law of motion of capitalism, and if there is any hope of progress in economics at all, it must be in using academic methods to solve the problems posed by Marx.
Joan Robinson
#65. I am THAT, I AM! Why should I be perfect.. when I'm already imperfectly perfect. And that's what is unique and perfect about me. I love that I am that I love that I am!
Abhishek Kumar
#66. Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?
Henry David Thoreau
#67. Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live.
W.B.Yeats
#68. Human language can but imperfectly describe God's ways. I am sensible of the fact that they are indescribable and inscrutable. But if mortal man will dare to describe them, he has no better medium than his own inarticulate speech.
Mahatma Gandhi
#69. History works on a long time scale, and at any given moment we can perceive its directions but imperfectly.
Daniel Walker Howe
#70. Ever since my childhood, I was haunted by the search for perfection. An imperfectly cut paper literally made me ill. I would guillotine it.
Hans Arp
#71. I now resolved to go to bed early, with a firm purpose of also rising early the next day to revisit this charming walk; for I thought to myself, I have now seen this temple of the modern world imperfectly; I have seen it only by moonlight.
Karl Philipp Moritz
#72. On those days, Hasan understood what Ami had meant when she said that there are memories that cannot be spoken of, because to speak of them imperfectly is to rob the of something vital, though to leave them intact, inside, is to leave no space for anything else in your life.
Kamila Shamsie
#73. How much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic that way: imperfectly monogamous.
Margaret Atwood
#74. Over time, we would learn each other and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.
Vanessa Diffenbaugh
#75. It is because we have such shallow views of God's love that we have such defective views of God's dealings. We blindly interpret the symbols of His providence, because we so imperfectly read the engravings of His heart.
Octavius Winslow
#76. A woman who is perfectly woman is superior to a man who is imperfectly man, just as a farmer who is faithful to his land and performs his work perfectly is superior to a king who cannot do his own work,
Julius Evola
#77. We were late among the living, and by the time God got to us ice was already slipping from the poles as if from an imperfectly decorated cake.
William H Gass
#78. Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.
Plato
#79. Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal.
SARK
#80. We have these instincts which defy all our wisdom and for which we never can frame any laws ... They are powers which are imperfectly developed in this life, but one cannot help the thought that the mystery of this world may be the commonplace of the next.
Sarah Orne Jewett
#81. Let's show them all how it's done, let's do it all imperfectly.
Ani DiFranco
#82. A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld, - The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies, - Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies.
Emily Dickinson
#83. The Qu'ran is God's song, not ours, not even Muhammad's. To allow such a song to pass through one's body, however imperfectly, is to discover that the instrument is transformed by the music.
George Dardess
#84. It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one's sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature.
Theodore Roosevelt
#85. Freedom is a lonely battle, but if the United States doesn't lead it - sometimes imperfectly, but mostly with honor - who will?
Cal Thomas
#86. No one, to my knowledge, has figured out the secret to love. We love imperfectly, Tyler. We all do. Even Jesus wrestled with that. But I think - I think the ability to receive love is as important as the ability to give it. It's one and the same really.
Elizabeth Strout
#87. Paul grasped humor only imperfectly, but supposed he could see the absurdity of it from a human perspective. "Yes, and you are a very charming bipedal bladder of fluid," he said. "Nicest thing anyone's said to me all day!
Jim Cleaveland
#88. G.K. Chesterton once said: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. I live by this philosophy when I teach writing. It seems to me vastly more important that a student try a new technique in her writing, and use it imperfectly, than never try the technique at all.
Ralph Fletcher
#89. Perfect couples don't exist, but there is always someone who is perfect for you.
Akash ran to meet his imperfectly perfect love Aleesha
Sudeep Nagarkar
#90. The harvest here is indeed great, and the laborers are few and imperfectly fitted, without much grace, for such a work. And yet grace can make a few feeble instruments the means of accomplishing great things - things greater even than we can conceive.
Hudson Taylor
#91. I hope I may have succeeded in presenting to you, however imperfectly, the currents of thought due to the work of the immortal Darwin which have helped to make anthropology what it is at the present time.
Franz Boas
#92. What I see in Nature is a grand design that we can understand only imperfectly, one with which a responsible person must look at with humility.
Albert Einstein
#93. Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent hands-on moments and skinned knees.
Richard Louv
#94. Make me chaste and To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!
Jean De La Bruyere
#95. A man who serves language, however imperfectly, should always serve truth.
Anthony Burgess
#96. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful.
Richard Dawkins
#97. It is always easy to question the judgement of others in matters of which we may be imperfectly informed.
P.D. James
#98. Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs.
Sigmund Freud
#99. The ideas of Freud were popularized by people who only imperfectly understood them, who were incapable of the great effort required to grasp them in their relationship to larger truths, and who therefore assigned to them a prominence out of all proportion to their true importance.
Alfred North Whitehead
#100. A man could only love her imperfectly, but God could give her the perfect love she desired. Lady Rose had learned to comfort her husband in his pain instead of expecting him to heal her own.
Melanie Dickerson
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