Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Perfection
Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
Michael Angelo. See C. C. Colton—Lacon.
What’s come to perfection perishes,
Things learned on earth we shall practise in heaven;
Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.
Robert Browning—Old Pictures in Florence. St. 17.
The very pink of perfection.
Goldsmith—She Stoops to Conquer. Act I. Sc. 1.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.
Pope—Essay on Criticism. Pt. II. L. 53.
Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn’d to serve
Humbly call’d mistress.
All’s Well That Ends Well. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 16.
How many things by season season’d are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Merchant of Venice. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 107.
It is the witness still of excellency
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 48.
A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.
Steele—The Tatler. No. 227.
In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.
Walt Whitman—Song of the Universal.