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

Never expect a perfect work from an imperfect man

We hire for perfect, we manage for perfect, we measure for perfect, and we reward for perfect. So why are we surprised that people spend their precious minutes of self-directed, focused work time trying to achieve perfect? The problem is simple: Art is never defect-free. Things that are remarkable never meet spec, because that would make them standardized, not worth talking about.

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

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. EUGÈNE DELACROIX

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.

I never expect a perfect work from an imperfect man.

he never finished any of the works he began because, so sublime was his idea of art, he saw faults even in the things that to others seemed miracles.

A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations.

If this end is unattainable, so, it can be said, is perfection in any other ideal of painting or in any other of man's activities.

Great work is not created for everyone. If it were, it would be average work.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.

Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect in its own bad way.