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

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Badness you can get easily, in quantity: the road is smooth, and it lies close by. But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.

How excellent is thy name in all the earth.

Real excellence does not come cheaply. A certain price must be paid in terms of practice, patience, and persistence—natural ability notwithstanding.

Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will enable you to attain the success you seek.

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential…these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.

I am not remotely interested in just being good.

Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act ‘rightly’ because we are ‘excellent’, in fact we achieve ‘excellence’ by acting ‘rightly’.

Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so dreadful.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

And, more importantly, reach for the stars. And realize that it is never too late—not now, not ever—for you to pursue you passion, your pursuit of perfection. And most importantly, your perseverance for making it happen.

I’m not perfect. And who knows how many times I’ve fallen short. We all fall short. That’s the amazing thing about the grace of God.

Nothing quite new is perfect.

The compass and the square produce perfect circles and squares. By the sages, the human relations are perfectly exhibited.

Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming is the character of perfection as culture conceives it.

Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative, they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind.

Creativity is often blocked to trying to be perfect. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consists in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Perfect wisdom has four parts; Wisdom, the principle of doing things right. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.

My strength is made perfect in weakness.