I never expect a perfect work from an imperfect man.

. . . no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. . . . no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure: that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying to follow it; besides that he will always give to the inferior portions of his work only such inferior attention as they require; and according to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude or anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied also. I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge this necessity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a picture and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way.

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

He who improvises can never make a perfect line of poetry.

The flaw in the work is the flaw in the man.

Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,—a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,—if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

He's not perfect. You are not either

L’homme n’est jamais ni parfait, ni content.

Man is never perfect, nor contended.

Ruskin says that anyone who expects perfection from a work of art knows nothing of works of art. This is an appealing sentence that, so far as I can see, is not true about a few pictures and statues and pieces of music, short stories and short poems. Whether or not you expect perfection from them, you get it; at least, there is nothing in them that you would want changed. But what Ruskin says is true about novels: anyone who expects perfection from even the greatest novel knows nothing of novels.

A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.

All human work is imperfect, because human nature is and this intrinsic imperfection of human affairs cannot be overcome by procrastination.

Man is imperfect. He is at some times more or less hypocritical than at others, and then simpletons say that his morality is high or low.

You can't make a perfect painting. We can see perfection in our minds. But we can't make a perfect painting.