The end of Salvation is perfection, the Christ-like mind, character, and life. Morality is on the way to this perfection; it may go a considerable distance toward it, but it can never reach it. Only Life can do that. . . . Morality can never reach perfection; Life MUST. For the Life must develop out according to its type; and being a germ of the Christ-life, it must unfold into A CHRIST. Natural Law, p. 138.
The last perfection of our faculties is that their activity, without ceasing to be sure and earnest, become sport.
Seeking the aid of the Holy Spirit, let us aim at perfection. Let every day see some sin crucified, some battle fought, some good done, some victory won; let every fall be followed by a rise, and every step gained become, not a resting-place, but a new starting-point for further and higher progress.--_Guthrie._
It is the witness still of excellency / To put a strange face on his own perfection.
Up from unfeeling mould, / To seraphs burning round the Almighty's throne, / Life rising still on life, in higher tone, / Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss.
It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
The first men who substituted the state of mutual peace for that of mutual war, whatever the motive which impelled them to take that step, created society. But, in establishing peace, they obviously put a limit upon the struggle for existence. Between the members of that society, at any rate, it was not to be pursued _à outrance_. And of all the successive shapes which society has taken, that most nearly approaches perfection in which the war of individual against individual is most strictly limited. The primitive savage, tutored by Istar, appropriated whatever took his fancy, and killed whosoever opposed him, if he could. On the contrary, the ideal of the ethical man is to limit his freedom of action to a sphere in which he does not interfere with the freedom of others; he seeks the common weal as much as his own; and, indeed, as an essential part of his own welfare. Peace is both end and means with him; and he founds his life on a more or less complete self-restraint, which is the negation of the unlimited struggle for existence. He tries to escape from his place in the animal kingdom, founded on the free development of the principle of non-moral evolution, and to establish a kingdom of Man, governed upon the principle of moral evolution. For society not only has a moral end, but in its perfection, social life, is embodied morality.
Grace has its dawn as well as day; grace has its green blade, and afterwards its ripe corn in the ear; grace has its babes and its men in Christ. With God's work there, as with all His works, "in all places of His dominion," progress is both the prelude and the path to perfection. Therefore we are exhorted to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to go on to perfection, saying with Paul, "I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."--_Guthrie._
Each creature seeks its perfection in another.
Measure not by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality.
Asana has two facets, pose and repose. Pose is the artistic assumption of a position. ‘Reposing in the pose’ means finding the perfection of a pose and maintaining it, reflecting in it with penetration of the intelligence and with dedication.
Let us think of God Himself becoming our song. This is the fulness and perfection of knowing God: so to know Him that He Himself becomes our delight; so to know Him that praise is sweetest, and fullest, and freshest, and gladdest, when we sing of Him. He who has learned this blessed secret carries the golden key of heaven--nay, he hath fetched heaven down to earth, and need not envy the angels now.--_Mark Guy Pearse._
Nihil simul inventum est et perfectum=--Nothing is invented and brought to perfection all at once.
The cross of Christ is the key of Paradise; the weak man's staff; the convert's convoy; the upright man's perfection; the soul and body's health; the prevention of all evil, and the procurer of all good.
Consider in what way the industrial system developed upon capitalist lines. Why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods? Why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed? Simply because the England upon which the new discoveries had come was already an England in which perhaps half of the whole population was proletarian, and a medium for exploitation ready to hand. When any one of the new industries was launched it had to be capitalized; that is, accumulated wealth from some source or other had to be found which would support labor in the process of production until that process should be complete. Someone must find the corn and the meat and the housing and the clothing by which should be supported, between the extraction of the raw material and the moment when the consumption of the finished article could begin, the human agents which dealt with that raw material and turned it into the finished product. Had property been well distributed, protected by cooperative guilds, fenced round and supported by custom and by the autonomy of great artisan corporations, those accumulations of wealth, necessary for the launching of each new method of production and for each new perfection of it, would have been discovered in the mass of small owners. Their corporations, their little parcels of wealth combined would have furnished the capitalization required for the new processes, and men already owners would, as one invention succeeded another, have increased the total wealth of the community without disturbing the balance of distribution. There is no conceivable link in reason or in experience which binds the capitalization of a new process with the idea of a few employing owners and a mass of employed nonowners working at a wage. Such great discoveries coming in a society like that of the thirteenth century would have blest and enriched mankind. Coming upon the diseased moral conditions of the eighteenth century in this country, they proved a curse. [ The Servile State . Section 4, “How the Distributive State Failed.” Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund Classics, 1977, pp. 100-101.]
The wise always use a number of ready-made phrases (at the moment I write ‘nobody’s business’ is the most common), popular adjectives (like ‘divine’ or ‘shy-making’), verbs that you only know the meaning of if you live in the right set (like ‘dunch’), which give a homely sparkle to small talk and avoid the necessity of thought. The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device to such perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.
We should guard against a talent which we cannot hope to practise in perfection. Improve it as we may, we shall always in the end, when the merit of the master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching.
Ars est celare artem=--It is the perfection of art to conceal art.
For Pope Pius XI, the theory of justice is based squarely on the dignity of the human personality. His position is that charity regulates our actions toward the human personality itself, that Image of God which is the object of love because it mirrors forth the Divine Perfections, and in the supernatural order shares those perfections. The human personality, however, because it is a created personality, needs certain “props” for the realization of its dignity. These “props” or supports of human dignity, which includes such things as property, relatives and friends, freedom and responsibility, are all objects of justice. To attack a human person in his personality itself, as by hatred, is a failure against charity; but to attack him be undermining the supports of his human dignity, as by robbery, is a failure against justice. The same thing is true in the field of social morality. The human community, as such, shows forth the perfections of God in ways that are not open to individuals. This fact is very clearly stated in paragraph 30 of the Encyclical Divini Redemptoris : “In a further sense it is society which affords the opportunity for the development of all the individuals and social gifts bestowed on human nature. These natural gifts have a value surpassing the immediate interests of the moment, for in society the reflect a Divine Perfection, which would not be true were man to live alone.” Society itself, therefore, as thus revealing further the perfection of God in His creatures, is worthy of love: of a love directed not only towards the individuals who compose the society, but also toward their union with each other. This love is social charity. Moreover, as society thus makes available to man the further perfection of his potentialities of mirroring the Divine Perfection, it is also a support for these perfections, and hence is an object of the virtue of justice. This justice, Social Justice, which is directed at the Common Good itself, requires that the society be so organized as to be in fact a vehicle for human perfection. [“The Dignity of the Human Personality: Basis of a Theory of Justice,” Chapter III of Introduction to Social Justice , Paulist Press, 1948, pp. 24-25.]
The Law by which this people is governed is at once the most ancient law in the world, the most perfect, and the only one which has been kept without interruption in a state. This is what Josephus excellently shows, against Apion, as does Philo the Jew in many places, where they point out that it is so ancient that the very name of _law_ was only known by the men of old more than a thousand years afterwards, so that Homer, who has treated the history of so many States, has not once used the word. And it is easy to judge of the perfection of the Law by simply reading it, for it plainly provides for all things with so great wisdom, equity and judgment, that the most ancient legislators, Greek and Roman, having had some glimpse of it, have borrowed from it their principal laws, as appears by those called Of the Twelve Tables, and by the other proofs given by Josephus.
The very pink of perfection.
Society is indeed a contract... it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born.
There is another fallacy which appears to me to pervade the so-called "ethics of evolution." It is the notion that because, on the whole, animals and plants have advanced in perfection of organization by means of the struggle for existence and the consequent "survival of the fittest"; therefore men in society, men as ethical beings, must look to the same process to help them towards perfection. I suspect that this fallacy has arisen out of the unfortunate ambiguity of the phrase "survival of the fittest." "Fittest" has a connotation of "best"; and about "best" there hangs a moral flavour. In cosmic nature, however, what is "fittest" depends upon the conditions. Long since, I ventured to point out that if our hemisphere were to cool again, the survival of the fittest might bring about, in the vegetable kingdom, a population of more and more stunted and humbler and humbler organisms, until the "fittest" that survived might be nothing but lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as those which give red snow its colour; while, if it became hotter, the pleasant valleys of the Thames and Isis might be uninhabitable by any animated beings save those that flourish in a tropical jungle. They, as the fittest, the best adapted to the changed conditions, would survive.
In the language of the Stoa, "Nature" was a word of many meanings. There was the "Nature" of the cosmos, and the "Nature" of man. In the latter, the animal "nature," which man shares with a moiety of the living part of the cosmos, was distinguished from a higher "nature." Even in this higher nature there were grades of rank. The logical faculty is an instrument which may be turned to account for any purpose. The passions and the emotions are so closely tied to tne lower nature that they may be considered to be pathological, rather than normal, phenomena. The one supreme, hegemonic, faculty, which constitutes the essential "nature" of man, is most nearly represented by that which, in the language of a later philosophy, has been called the pure reason. It is this "nature" which holds up the ideal of the supreme good and demands absolute submission of the will to its behests. It is this which commands all men to love one another, to return good for evil, to regard one another as fellow-citizens of one great state. Indeed, seeing that the progress towards perfection of a civilised state, or polity, depends on the obedience of its members to these commands, the Stoics sometimes termed the pure reason the "political" nature. Unfortunately, the sense of the adjective has undergone so much modification that the application of it to that which commands the sacrifice of self to the common good would now sound almost grotesque.
Ne plus ultra=--What cannot be surpassed; perfection (_lit._ no more beyond).
In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all religions: for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul with Brahma is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the _Logos_, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as thought and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished but never separated, for they exist only through each other. In this matter the Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought 'man' became naturally the highest _Logos_, realised in millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the thought, so also the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the Father, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son of God, and all men who believe in Him His brethren. This revelation or inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom the Son willeth to reveal Him. This is the Christian Revelation in the true sense of the word.
The Anarchists never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow authority.
Culture is a study of perfection.
Is it an excellence in your love that it can love only the extraordinary, the rare? If it were love’s merit to love the extraordinary, then God would be — if I dare say so — perplexed, for to Him the extraordinary does not exist at all. The merit of being able to love only the extraordinary is therefore more like an accusation, not against the extraordinary nor against love, but against the love which can love only the extraordinary. Perfection in the object is not perfection in the love. Erotic love is determined by the object; friendship is determined by the object; only love of one’s neighbor is determined by love. Therefore genuine love is recognizable by this, that its object is without any of the more definite qualifications of difference, which means that this love is recognizable only by love.
To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct, either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of the other.
An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.
He that claims, either in himself or for another, the honours of perfection will surely injure the reputation which he designs to assist.
[J]ust as an individual is called “good” without qualification, not because of a single good act or good quality, even though it be of heroic proportions, but because of his good habits , that is, his moral virtues ; so a society is not to be called “good” without qualification for the good individuals in it or for some great collective act of generosity or valor, but only for its good institutions , that is its Social Justice . And just as vice is as much a habit as virtue; so bad institutions are as much organized as good ones. The only difference is in the kind of organization and that is determined by its end: the good to secure the development and perfection of the full human life, and the bad to grasp some sort of immediate advantage regardless of the consequences. [“Virtue is the Habit of Doing Good,” Chapter V, Introduction to Social Justice. ]
I do not know what comfort other people find in considering the weakness of great men, but 'tis always a mortification to me to observe that there is no perfection in humanity.--_Montagu._
Sarah. I smiled. I couldn’t help but appreciate the absolute perfection of the name; bland, common, and wholly unoriginal. Best of all, it means princess.
Poetry should be vital, either stirring our blood by its divine movements, or snatching our breath by its divine perfection.
The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.
All perfection consists in the love of God; and the perfection of divine love consists in the union of our will with that of God.--ST. ALPHONSUS.
And when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection.
To judge rightly of the goodness and perfection of any one's prayer, it is sufficient to know the disposition he takes to it, and the fruits he reaps from it.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
In recalling to mind the life and actions of the saints, walk in their footsteps as much as possible, and humble thyself if thou canst not attain to their perfection.--ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
One of the noblest qualities in our nature is that we are able so easily to dispense with greater perfection.
To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good; because the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.
The perfection of spiritual virtue lies in being always all there, a whole man present in every movement and moment.
I have found out that the real essentials of greatness in men are not written in books, nor can they be found in the schools, They are written into the inner consciousness of everyone who intensely searches for perfection in creative achievement and are understandable to such men only.
Let no man measure by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality.
Perfecting is our destiny, but perfection is never our lot.
True virtue, being united to heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection.
Such a museum, if residents who are interested in these sciences take proper pains, may be brought to a great degree of perfection and be unique of its kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly what they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance. Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, Hindoo idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells--who shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of science elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their "America is here," as Wilhelm Meister has it.
Heavens! can you then thus waste, in shameful wise, / Your few important days of trial here? / Heirs of eternity! yborn to rise / Through endless states of being, still more near / To bliss approaching, and perfection clear.
Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular station of life.--_Addison._
The stoical exemption which philosophy affects to give us over the pains and vexations of human life is as imaginary as the state of mystical quietism and perfection aimed at by some crazy enthusiast.
One who has nothing to admire, nothing to love, except his own poor self, may be reckoned a completed character; (but) he is in the minimum state of moral perfection--no more can be made of him.
Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and strife's success, / All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder, / Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less.
They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other.
There is for the soul a spontaneous culture, on which depends all its real progress in perfection.
Every culture, if its natural development is not too much affected by political restrictions, experiences a perpetual renewal of the formative urge, and out of that comes an ever growing diversity of creative activity. Every successful piece of work stirs the desire for greater perfection and deeper inspiration; each new form becomes the herald of new possibilities of development.
Discretion is necessary in spiritual life. It is its part to restrain the exercises in the way of perfection, so as to keep us between the two extremes.--ST. IGNATIUS.
Portrait-painting may be to the painter what the practical knowledge of the world is to the poet, provided he considers it as a school by which he is to acquire the means of perfection in his art, and not as the object of that perfection.
He is the half part of a blessed man, / Left to be finished by such as she; / And she a fair divided excellence, / Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
How many things by season season'd are To their right praise and true perfection!
The goal of the organisms of the Spiritual World is nothing less than this--to be "holy as He is holy, and pure as He is pure." And by the Law of Conformity to Type, their final perfection is secured. The inward nature must develop out according to its Type, until the consummation of oneness with God is reached. Natural Law, p. 403.
Not by refraining from action does man attain freedom from action. Not by mere renunciation does he attain supreme perfection.