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Perfection   Listen
noun
Perfection  n.  
1.
The quality or state of being perfect or complete, so that nothing requisite is wanting; entire development; consummate culture, skill, or moral excellence; the highest attainable state or degree of excellence; maturity; as, perfection in an art, in a science, or in a system; perfection in form or degree; fruits in perfection.
2.
A quality, endowment, or acquirement completely excellent; an ideal faultlessness; especially, the divine attribute of complete excellence. "What tongue can her perfections tell?"
To perfection, in the highest degree of excellence; perfectly; as, to imitate a model to perfection.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perfection" Quotes from Famous Books



... after his arrival was to declare the liberal policy, and this was done in a manifesto which was published almost at once. [Footnote: History of Brattle St. Church, p. 20.] The efficiency of the Congregational organization depended upon the perfection of the guard which the ministers and the congregations mutually kept over each other. On the one hand no dangerous element could creep in among the people through the laxness of the elder, since all candidates for the communion had to pass through ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... period alone. Now, my lord, none can know better than yourself the charms of that society, or how much it is calculated to win and engage the heart of any one whose bosom was totally free, and had never beheld before a woman equal in the slightest degree to his ideas of perfection. I will confess, my lord, that I struggled very hard against the feelings which I found growing up in my own bosom. At that time I struggled the more and with the firmer determination, because I had always entertained ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... in some moods seems the greatest of them all—"The Shepherdess" (Pl. 9), that is, or used to be, in the Chauchard collection. In this nobly tranquil work, in which there is no hint of sadness or revolt, are to be found all his usual inevitableness of composition and perfection of draughtsmanship—note the effect of repetition in the sheep, "forty feeding like one"—but the glory of the picture is in the infinite recession of the plain that lies flat, the exact notation of the successive positions upon it of the things that stand upright, from the ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... Jesus did very many miracles, in Egypt, which are neither to be found in Gospel of the Infancy nor in the Gospel of Perfection. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... military character can be built; for while no toleration should be shown to the absurd belief that military eminence leaps fully grown into the arena, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter—that, unlike every other kind of perfection, it grows wild and owes nothing to care, to arduous study, to constant preparation—it is still true that it can be developed only upon great natural aptitudes. The distinction conveyed by a phrase of Jomini, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... and spedie reading ouer, those forenamed good bokes of Tullie, Terence, Csar, and Liuie, and by this second kinde of translating out of your English, tyme shall breed skill, and vse shall bring perfection, than ye may trie, if you will, your scholer, with the third kinde of translation: although the two first wayes, by myne opinion, be, not onelie sufficent of them selues, but also surer, both for the Masters teaching, ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham

... general tenour of the explanations here given, it will perhaps be inferred that the perfection of the Atlas has been the principal object of concern; in fact, having no pretension to authorship, the writing of the narrative, though by much the most troublesome part of my labour, was not that upon which any hope of reputation was founded; a polished style ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... felt the reflex influence of these political and social relations. The cavalry was throughout the predominant arm; alongside of which among the Belgae, and still more in the British islands, the old national war-chariots appear in remarkable perfection. These equally numerous and efficient bands of combatants on horseback and in chariots were formed from the nobility and its vassals; for the nobles had a genuine knightly delight in dogs and horses, and were ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... ask, why could these naturalists not let the nomenclature of the boors alone? If a better name than "wilde-honden" (wild hounds) can be given to these animals, I should like to hear it. Why, it is the very perfection of a name, and exactly expresses the character of the animal to which they apply it—that character, which coming under their everyday ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... of the bishops is a usurpation devoid of scriptural authority, that the Mass, Confession, Purgatory, and Intercession of the Saints are to be rejected as derogatory to the merits of Christ, and finally, that clerical celibacy and monastic vows, instead of being counsels of perfection, are only cloaks for sin and hypocrisy. The Bishop of Constance refused to take part in such a disputation. His vicar-general, Johann Faber of Constance, however, attended the meeting, not indeed to take ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... copying these manuscripts, has at last applied to me to find him an expert drawer; and so I have been thinking of you, dear Herr Anselmus, for I know that you both write very neatly, and likewise draw with the pen to great perfection. Now, if in these bad times, and till your future establishment, you would like to earn a speziesthaler in the day, and this present over and above, you can go tomorrow precisely at noon, and call upon the Archivarius, whose ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... and stumps, and bottle up his frightful energy for the final fearsome leap. His whole makeup is sacrificed to efficiency in that leap; on that depends his life; his very existence turns on the wondrous perfection of the sneak, of which the leap is the culmination. Hunters in all parts where these creatures abound, agree in calling Wildcat, Lynx, and Cougar by the undignified but descriptive name ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... to God for having withdrawn his veil of clouds from this threshold of the heavenly vestibule, and brought us across the Atlantic to behold. And as our eyes, blinded by the dazzling vision,—which we might reside here years without beholding in such perfection,—filled with tears, we were forced to turn them away and hide them, or fasten them upon the dark range of Jura on the other side of us, until they were able to gaze again. Thus we rode onward, obtaining ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... as Anthony looked on the canvas, was that living, moving face and figure. What more could He have done that He did not do? What perfection could be dreamed of that was not ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... flattery. I had my share of that when I was younger, though I must say your grandfather knew how to turn a compliment to perfection. Ah, my dear, there are not many like him now-a-days. Not many!" ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... dare to call themselves patriots. And those, Lenore, who live to see their country's hopeless ruin, plunge into a sadness at heart that no other loss can equal, no remaining blessing mitigate,—neither the devotion of a wife nor the perfection of a child. You have seen exiles from a lost land? Pride is dead in them, hope is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me, would you choose me to suffer the personal loss of love and you, a loss I could hide in my aching soul, or to bear those black marks of gall and melancholy which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... warm September day, the calm trees, and the flowers that were pure untroubled beauty (how I envied them their dispassionate lives, their tranquil growth, their effortless attainment of perfection, and their unconscious dying!)—all these had a strangely harmonizing influence upon my discordant spirit. We spoke little, and of the war not at all. Indeed, the war suddenly seemed curiously remote and I could hardly hear the throbbing of the guns. I knew that ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... wrote verse in all three of the manners just named, but he will certainly be longest remembered for his serranillas, the fine flower of the Provencal-Galician tradition, in which the poet describes his meeting with a country lass. Santillana combined the freshest local setting with perfection of form and left nothing more to be desired in that genre. He also wrote the first sonnets in Castilian, but they are interesting only as an experiment, and had no followers. Juan de MENA (1411-1456) was purely ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

... commandment: for so the righteous man is described; Job i. 8; ii. 3. As it is said of Zacharias and Elisabeth his wife, "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless;" Luke i. 5, 6. Here the perfection, that is, the universality, of their negative holiness is implied, and the universality of their positive holiness is expressed: they walked in all the commandments of the Lord; but that they could not ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... Faustus thought he had at length opened the door to riches, honour, and enjoyment. He exerted himself to the utmost, in order to bring the art to perfection, and he now laid his discovery before mankind; but their lukewarmness quickly convinced him that, although the greatest inventor of his age, he and his family would soon perish with hunger unless his genius ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... since Brensius worked. We see from a representation of a Viol in the above-mentioned work that the sound-holes are better formed, the scroll is artistically designed, and the whole harmonious. These steps towards perfection were mounted by Duiffoprugcar and Gasparo da Salo, both of whom rapidly developed the art. With Gasparo da Salo, or a contemporary, was witnessed the rejection of the crescent-formed sound-hole, and the adoption of that which has held its own for upwards of three centuries. The sound-holes of the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... perfection. The prisoners had always been quiet and well-behaved, and had never made any attempt to escape, so no suspicions now suggested themselves to the guards. They hastily unlocked the doors and dashed in, with rifles held ready to shoot—and the next moment they were on the floor, with ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... The life-torches worked to perfection. As our friends carried them, there arose about their bodies a cloud of invisible vapor, which, however, was as great a protection from the poisonous gases as a coat of ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... Newton or John Bunyan. And yet the change in him was marked enough to furnish an exhibition of contrast, showing the power of Christ's teachings and example upon him, until he reached an unwonted degree of perfection. He combined the noblest traits of the loftiest manhood and womanhood, with the simplicity of childhood. His human kinship to Jesus illustrated but faintly the closer and tenderer relation formed by the transforming of his ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... cold iron floats upon molten iron. In company with my friend Sir William Armstrong, I had repeated opportunities of witnessing this fact in his works at Elswick, 1863. Faraday, I remember, spoke to me subsequently of the perfection of iron castings as probably due to the swelling of the metal on solidification. Beyond this, I have given the subject no special attention; and I know that many intelligent iron-founders doubt the fact of expansion. It is quite possible that the solid floats ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... and sheep; yellow and strong. Takes one year to mature and is very popular both in Sicily where it is made to perfection and in Southern Colorado where it is imitated by and for ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... us some models, in different arts and sciences, which have been found inimitable, the moderns, on the other hand, have carried their inventions and improvements, in a variety of instances, to an extent and a degree of perfection of which the former could entertain no ideas. Among those discoveries in which we have stepped so far beyond our masters there is none more striking, or more eminently useful, than the means which the ingenuity of some, and the experience of others, have taught mankind, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... and ever had for your Lordship and your Great Family. Still, I say, I did admire you, still I wish'd and pray'd for you; 'twas all I cou'd or durst: But, as my Esteem for your Lordship daily increased with my Judgment, so nothing cou'd bring it to a more absolute height and perfection, than to observe in these troublesome times, this Age of Lying, Peaching, and Swearing with what noble Prudence, what steadiness of Mind, what Loyalty and Conduct you have evaded the Snare, that 'twas to be fear'd was laid for all the Good, the Brave, and Loyal, for ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... of opinion, that personal beauty in slaves so purchased was of itself sufficient to render them proper substitutes for wives, which, often on account of alliance or interest in families, men are obliged to marry, though they are not always possessed of any perfection, either of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... so, my son, more or less," interrupted the holy bonze. "You were wrong to expect perfection, and must abide by your bargain now. It is no use getting angry, ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes

... lamp, nor the briar the brook. Thank the sun whence the lamp hath his light, and the ocean to whom the brook oweth his waters. Thank that incomparable paragon, that consummate swan, that pearl of all perfection, my mistress, of whose brightness I am but ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... moreover, such an assumption would be contradicted by what we actually observe. For the (energies of) seeing, hearing, noticing, cognising constitute the character of the individual soul, and that character is observed to exist in full perfection, even in the case of that individual soul which has not yet risen beyond the body. Every individual soul carries on the course of its practical existence by means of the activities of seeing, hearing, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... just right. Liquid crystal, sparkling sapphire, perfection! Come, you must have your swimming lesson. Forget the cheerful swain,—behold the ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards

... to his noble friend and former pupil, the M— of G—, and, forgetting that he is now turned of seventy, sacrificed so liberally to Bacchus, that next day he was seized with a fit of the apoplexy, which has a little impaired his memory; but he retains all the oddity of his character in perfection, and is going back to Italy by the way of Geneva, that he may have a conference with his friend Voltaire, about giving the last blow to the Christian superstition — He intends to take shipping here for Holland or Hamburgh; for it is a matter of great indifference ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... the mental vision. In theatrical representation, a man with a bush of thorn and lantern must 'present moonshine' and another, with a bit of plaster, the wall which divides Pyramus from his Thisbe; but in Mr. Lanier's readings, a poet's quick imagination brought forth in full perfection all the accessories of the play. When he read, in the Johns Hopkins lecture hall, that scene from 'Pericles' in which Cerimon restores Thaisa's apparently lifeless body to animation, a large audience listened with breathless ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... the poor famishing starving infants. This moving story was accompanied with tears; upon which, the maid ran in to acquaint the ladies with this melancholy tale, while the good grandmother kept pinching one or other of the children, that they might play their parts to greater perfection; the maid soon returned with a half crown from the ladies, and some good broth, which he went into the court-yard to eat, (understanding the gentlemen were not in the house,) and got one of the under-servants, whom he met, to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... keep his hand steady, and instantly drew a perfect circle. "Tell his holiness that this is my design," said he. His friends tried to persuade him not to send such a thing to the pope; but he persisted in doing so. Pope Benedict was a learned man, and he saw that Giotto had given the best evidence of perfection in his art. He invited the painter to Rome, and honored and rewarded him. "Round as Giotto's O," from that time, became an Italian proverb. But I must give a glance at the early history of this man. In the year 1276—according to that invaluable ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... eyes came a look of infinite trust and infinite joy. She had no qualms about the Scotch marriage. She had heard of them again and again, and they were mere commonplaces to her. It did seem strange, walking away with him alone, but she had given him her heart's love, and she had a perfection of ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... over his face at her words, she blushed. She unquestionably blushed and hurried on, scarcely waiting for his reply. Some days later, as she was taking a favorite walk over a path among the thickets on the slope of Laurel Hill, whence the hazy Indian Summer landscape could be seen to perfection beneath the thin but wonderfully bland sunshine of November, she again met him face to face. Perhaps it was the color in her cheeks ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... consented, leaving Edith with Lucy to learn straw plaiting, if she liked, and to listen to her artless talk. Lucy had less veneration for the name of Queen Victoria than for that of Schomberg. Emilie was to her the very perfection of human nature, and accordingly she sang her praises loud ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... the play worked to perfection. At the snap of the ball Neil Durant started swiftly to the right and drew after him the major part of the Jefferson secondary defense. For the moment Teeny-bits seemed to have been forgotten: it did not ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... the whole room carefully, she looking after their lodgings, and he seeing what chances there were of food, and what kinds of it, for Mr. Mouse was rather dainty in his eating, if he were not hard up for food, as they had been a good deal lately. They found everything perfection. As to lodgings, Mrs. Mouse found a hole which delighted her extremely. It was obscurely hid in the wainscot under the wardrobe, where nobody could possibly see them going in and out—just to her liking. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... play hath a great moral—thou shalt learn to use thy brain or die. Now, there be many perils in this land o' the woods—so many that all its people must learn to think or perish by them. A pretty bit o' wisdom it is, sor. It keeps the great van moving—ever moving, in the long way to perfection. Now, among animals, a growing brain works the legs of its owner, sending them far on diverse errands until they are strong. Mind thee, boy, perfection o' brain and body is the aim o' Nature. The cat's paw an' the serpent's coil are but the ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... dragged across a scene of unparalleled violence. The last I saw was Hermann's niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing apart from the others. Magnificent in her close-fitting print frock she displayed something so commanding in the manifest perfection of her figure that the sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The flood of light brought out the opulence of her form and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying way. She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only the hem of her skirt stirred in the draught; ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... poems, tragedies, and pastorals, with surprising facility; song, epigram, or rebus, was all one to him; though, it is observed, he could never finish an acrostick. In short, the fairy who presided at his birth had endowed him with almost every perfection; or, what was just the same, his subjects were ready to acknowledge he possessed them all; and, for his own part, he knew nothing to the contrary. A prince so accomplished, received a name suitable to his merit; and he was called Bonbenin-bonbobbin-bonbobbinet, which signifies Enlightener ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown

... by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! and yet it was not possible for me to say to people, 'Speak louder—bawl—for I am deaf!' Ah! how could I proclaim the defect of a sense that I once possessed in the highest perfection—in a perfection in which few of my colleagues possess or ever did possess it? Indeed, I cannot! Forgive me, then, if ye see me draw back when I would gladly mingle among you. Doubly mortifying is my misfortune ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved which attest beauty of design of the highest character,—like the Battle of Issus, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... Who is it? When was it? Where was it? How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never came out before—positively say things! William Buffy carries one of these smartnesses from the place where he ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... bare issue which, viii. 275. 'Ware how thou hurtest man with hurt of hearts, ii. 197. 'Ware that truth thou speak, albe sooth when said, x. 23. Was't archer shot me, or was't shine eyes, v. 33. Watch some tall ship she'll joy the sight of thee, ii. 20. Watered steel-blade, the world perfection calls, vii. 173. Waters of beauty e'er his cheeks flow bright, viii. 299. We joy in full Moon who the wine bears round, viii. 227. We left not taking leave of thee (when bound to other goal), viii. 63. We lived on earth a life of fair content, v. 71. We lived till saw we all the marvels Love can ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... as her mother was depressing. She was very young at this time and had the physical perfection—at least as regards body—that her parents must have had in youth. She was above the average height of woman, with strong swell of bosom and glorious, erect carriage of head. Her features were coarse, but regular and pleasing, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... house and half a mile from Broadstone Station, and have succeeded in buying three acres, chosen by myself, from Lord Wimborne at what is really a reasonable price. In its contour, views, wood, and general aspect of wild nature it is almost perfection; and Annie, Violet, and Will are all pleased and satisfied with it. It is on the slope of the Broadstone middle plateau, looking south over Poole Harbour with the Purbeck Hills beyond, and a little eastward out to the sea.... The ground is good loam in the orchard, with some sand and ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... blonde for whom we have seen him masquerading as Romeo. But this union, which was on the one part only a matter of spite, and on the other one of fancy, could not last long. The girl was after all only a light of love, warbling to perfection the gamut of trickery, witty enough to note the wit of others and to make use of it on occasion, and with only enough heart to feel heartburn when she had eaten too much. Add to this unbridled self-esteem and a ferocious ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... a twenty-dollar bill to perfection," he exclaimed as he examined the dark oblong at one end. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... knowledge and official surveys, and what I chiefly aim to establish is the true cause of the results which are already known to the whole world; and it may be a relief to many to know that I shall publish no other, but, like the player at cards, will "stand;" not that I have accomplished perfection, but because I can do no better with the cards in hand. Of omissions there are plenty, but of wilful ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... politician whatever himself, to exercise his wits on their account, and brought his machine to such a pitch of perfection, that it was the identical one used in the memorable attempt—' (Dare whispered the remainder of the sentence in tones so low that not a mouse in the corner could have heard.) 'Well, the inventor of that explosive has naturally ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... from what Phoebe hath informed me of yonder wretch's opinions, it is much to be regretted that his brains had not been beaten out in his cradle, rather than that he had grown up to be one of those Grindlestonians, or Muggletonians, in whom is the perfection of every foul and blasphemous heresy, united with such an universal practice of hypocritical assentation as would deceive their ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... around with the sucker for some time; then running, I mounted the horse and galloped off. The game worked to perfection. The old fellow bawled out that I had stolen a horse, and the owner mounted the other horse and pushed hard after me. When I had gone about four miles I slackened up and let him overtake me, and we reached another train going ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... admiration for this masterpiece, showered Keldermans with honors; made him director of construction of the towns of Antwerp, Brussels, and Malines, putting thus the seal of artistic perfection upon his dynasty. ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... of wing. A humming-bird's nest, composed of cotton interlaced with horse-hair, was shown the author at Buena Esperanza, a plantation near Guines. It was about twice the size of a lady's thimble, and contained two eggs, no larger than common peas. The nest was a marvel of perfection, the cotton being bound cunningly and securely together by the long horse-hairs, of which there were not more than three or four. Human fingers could not have done it so deftly. Probably the bird that built the nest and laid the eggs did not weigh, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... patristic texts on property, which we quoted in the section dealing with that subject, and asks: 'What conclusion should one draw from these different passages? It is that in Christ there are no rich and no poor, no mine and no thine; that in Christian perfection all things are common to all men, but that nevertheless property is legitimate and derived from human law. Is it not in the same sense that the Fathers condemned slavery as contrary to divine law, while respecting it as comformable to human law? The ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... me the full expression of a healthy love of nature, possible only to a moral sanity in the man—a cheery Wordsworthian enjoyment of her, which as a rule I have never found in perfection out of the English school and its derivatives; the outpouring of a robust nature which prefers to see the outer world with the spectacles of no school, and through the memory of no other man; not self-taught in the sense of owing nothing to another mind, but in the sense ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... point of perfection, as of goodness or maturity in nature; he who is able to perceive it, and who loves it, has perfect taste; he who does not feel it, or loves on this side or that, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... "Anwendung der Darwin'schen Lehre auf Bienen," "Verhandl. d. naturhist. Vereins fur preuss. Rheinld. u. Westf." 1872. References to Muller's paper occur in the second edition of the "Descent of Man.") I really have no criticisms or suggestions to offer. The perfection of the gradation in the character of bees, especially in such important parts as the mouth-organs, was altogether unknown to me. You bring out all such facts very clearly by your comparison with the corresponding organs in the allied hymenoptera. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... did; and as I was always somewhat of a dandy, I went to the extreme of Dyak fashion, except in the matter of putting those big rings in my ears, and chewing betel-nut; in fact I now take the lead in dress, and am looked upon as the very pink of perfection. I have learned their language, and adapted myself to their ways; but I have begun to get rather tired of this sort of life, and have been lately considering how I can best take my departure, and in what direction I ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston

... the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose—and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious smoothness of surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things heavenly—the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... dependent on, the wills of men. There is therefore some other Spirit that causes them; since it is repugnant that they should subsist by themselves. See sect. 29. But, if we attentively consider the constant regularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising magnificence, beauty, and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite contrivance of the smaller parts of creation, together with the exact harmony and correspondence of the whole, but above all the never-enough-admired laws of pain and pleasure, and the instincts or natural inclinations, ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... think that passion, when it is pure and happy, leads man to a state of perfection; it simply leads him, as we have noted, to a state of oblivion. In this situation, man forgets to be bad, but he also forgets to be good. Gratitude, duty, matters essential and important to be remembered, vanish. At any other time, Marius would have behaved ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... feet or body at all. The throw is, of course, not so swift as by first wheeling toward the base and then throwing, but it will catch a runner oftener. "Smiling Mickey" Welch plays the point to perfection, and last season caught many men "napping" in this way. Its advantage is that it is entirely legitimate. Some pitchers, in order to catch a runner at first, make a slight forward movement, visible to ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... spirit, the matter is beyond controversy; but when we come to consider the incidents of the story, we find deviations from Homer even more serious than any of those from the Cyclic poets. And the strange thing is, that each of these deviations is a manifest detriment to the perfection of his poem; in each of them the writer has missed, or has rejected, a magnificent opportunity. With regard to the slaying of Achilles by the hand of Apollo only, and not by those of Apollo and Paris, he might have pleaded that Homer himself here ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... only a month ago she had stood in this room in the moonlight, waiting to go and meet Ishmael in the field? Her fingers shook a little as she took a few blossoms of creamy-yellow toadflax he had picked for her out of their vase and laid them tentatively against her gown. They harmonised to perfection, but Blanche, after a moment's hesitation, flung ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... orderly composition. For all things throughout, there is but one and the same order; and through all things, one and the same God, the same substance and the same law. There is one common reason, and one common truth, that belongs unto all reasonable creatures, for neither is there save one perfection of all creatures that are of the same kind, and ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... though not equal in beauty and perfection to the "Muette de Portici" by the same author, is notwithstanding, a happy {91} invention of Auber's, particularly because the local tints are so well caught. The banditti are painted with bright and glowing colors, and the part of ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... is not intended for smokers who are satisfied with any old stuff that will burn and give off smoke. It is used by people who want nothing but the best and know it when they get it. It's the perfection of pipe tobacco. ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... Eloquence may be "logic on fire" as Dr. Lyman Beecher defined it. Oratory may be, as Emerson said, "the noblest expression of purely personal energy." But it is so far personal, so allied to grace of gesture, to charm of manner, to melody of voice, to perfection of speech, to a commanding presence, that it carries to the future but a fraction of its power. The cold type and the insentiate page constitute at best only the record ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds

... Dedlock—to be in a cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous accident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal settlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is upon the whole of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to any complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the lower classes to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... fear, I walked on to the front of the stage. My chairman, Mr. Arthur Hill (Corporation Counsel of the City of Boston), in introducing me spoke with the greatest ease, and I observed that every word he said was heard; but it was obvious from the perfection of his speech that he had addressed a thousand audiences before and this was only my second ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... justifieth, and which secureth the soul from the curse of the law; by hiding, through its perfection, all the sins and imperfections of the soul. Hence it follows, "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... at seventy, she was very pretty, quite a woman to look at with pleasure. Her feet and hands were exquisitely made, and she was very proud of them. She wore her own grey hair of which she showed very little, but that little was always exquisitely nice. Her caps were the perfection of caps. Her green eyes were bright and sharp, and seemed to say that she knew very well how to take care of herself. Her mouth, and nose, and chin, were all well-formed, small, shapely, and concise, not straggling about her face as do the mouths, noses, and chins of some old ladies—ay, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... pleasant face your sailor friend has, Mr. Rankin! He has been so frank and truthful with us. You know I don't think anybody can pay me a greater compliment than to be quite sincere with me at first sight. It's the perfection of natural good manners. ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw

... what on earth have I been saying now. I quite believed I was doing the heavy father to perfection and teaching Tommy ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... tee the Potent Noble looked down at the heavy fog which was rolling in through the Golden Gate. He addressed the ball. He jumbled around on his feet and took a couple of practice swings. Perfection was in every movement. Then, as he drove, the Wildcat sneezed. There followed a blast of profanity whose equal the Wildcat had not heard since his army days. He edged over towards the Mud Turtle. "Neveh seed a boy change so quick. Heah ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... the perfection of its conic form. Owing to the perpendicular walls of lava formed on the slopes all around, it would seem impossible to reach the crater. The elevation of the peak has been computed at between 8,200 and 8,400 feet. I have been around the base on the E. and S. sides, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... with which she was acquainted, Arethusa loved best a thunder-storm. She felt no slightest tinge of fear; to be out of doors in the wind and rain with thunder crashing and rolling and great flashes of lightning splitting wide the heavens, every now and then, left nothing to be desired towards the perfection of the situation. She had sometimes fancied, after an unusually wide and vivid flash, that she had really been able to see a wee bit of a way into that Heavenly City which she had been taught was high above her, behind all that sky, in ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... in his most rapturous visions; had they but good figures, they would excite envy on the Alamedas of Andalusia; in short, they are the veriest little ducks in the world, and dress with Parisian perfection. No wonder, then, reader, when I tell you that "loafing" up and down Broadway is a favourite occupation with the young men who have leisure hours to spare. So attractive did my young friend of the Household Brigade find it, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... be first in power and arms, made him from want of leisure give up the first rank, to which his natural talents invited him, and consequently his attention to military matters and political affairs by which he got the supreme power, did not allow him to attain perfection in oratory. Accordingly at a later period, in his reply to Cicero about Cato,[445] he deprecates all comparison between the composition of a soldier and the eloquence of an accomplished orator who had plenty of ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... delicate sisterhood; yet shapely, perfect in outline and development, exquisite, enchanting in its never fully-analyzed tints, yet compelling the admiration of every one, and recalling its admirers again and again by the unspoken appeal of its own perfection—its ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... at last. Mrs. Castleton's rooms were lighted to perfection, and she herself dressed with exquisite taste, looking the fitting priestess of the elegant shrine over which she presided. Emma, with her brothers, came early—and one glance satisfied Mrs. Castleton. The simplicity ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... the Kingdom of Dreams. No epoch in all literary history is so hopelessly entangled in the meshes of subtle philosophical speculation, derived from the most complex sources. To deal with the facts of classic art, which is concerned with seeking a clearly-defined perfection, is a simple matter compared with the unbounded and undefined concepts of a school which waged war upon "the deadliness of ascertained facts" and immersed itself in vague intimations of glories that were to be. Its most authorized exponent ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Speed into the game—maybe Medford spirit won't rise sky high!" chuckled Milt. "Boy, I guess maybe we didn't play our parts to perfection! We ought to get ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... been bathed in the dew of the morning, the better to harmonize with the delicate complexion of her lovely face, nestled in her hair, and above it, more magnificent than anything yet seen in Innsbruck, and setting off to perfection the dazzling lustre of her yellow ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... matter and light were co-eternal; they supposed that was all one unformed and tenebrous mass; and from the former they established the principle of evil and of all imperfection, while they regarded the latter as sovereign perfection. Creation, or, one might better say co-ordination, was only the emanation of light which penetrated chaos, but the mixture of light and matter was the cause of all the inevitable imperfections of the universe. The soul of man was part and parcel ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... would be speaking against faith, as we have seen in the chapter on "Virginity." The "Catechism of the Council of Trent" says: "As it is the duty of the pastor to propose to himself the holiness and perfection of the faithful, his earnest desires must be in full accordance with those of the Apostle when, writing to the Corinthians, he says: 'I would that all men were even as myself;' that is," continue the Fathers ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous

... it affords good evidence that the most refined beauty may serve as a sexual charm, and for no other purpose. We must conclude that this is the case, as the secondary and primary wing-feathers are not at all displayed, and the ball and socket ornaments are not exhibited in full perfection until the male assumes the attitude of courtship. The Argus pheasant does not possess brilliant colours, so that his success in love appears to depend on the great size of his plumes, and on the elaboration of the most elegant patterns. Many will declare that ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... that the evolution of humanity has been an unbroken progress towards perfection; you may maintain that there has been no progress at all, and that man remains the same poor creature that he ever was; or, lastly, you may say with the author of the 'Contrat Social,' that men were purest and best ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... truce!" cried Mayence sternly. "Again we are running into a moral catalogue impossible of embodiment. Is there any such man in your mind, or are you merely treating us to a counsel of perfection?" ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... before or behind them; and thus general vigilance became the rule of all. By these and various other means the business of the concern was admirably done, and the carrying trade of the country was brought to as high a state of perfection as was compatible with the then state of the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... Prince Aribert, in a curious tone. 'Impossible. He is the perfection of health. In three months he will be married. No, I shall never be anything but a Serene Highness, the most despicable ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... be that we in letters trace The pure exactness of a woodbird's strain, And name it song; or with the brush attain The high perfection of a wildflower's face; Or mold in difficult marble all the grace We know as man; or from the wind and rain Catch elemental rapture of refrain And mark in music to due time and place: The aim of art is nature; to unfold Her truth and beauty to the souls of men In close suggestions; in whose ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... contiguous atmosphere gives indications of the influence of the light and shade. To these principles the art is indebted for breadth and fulness of effect, which constitute the distinct characteristics between the early state and its maturity—and to Rembrandt we owe the perfection of this ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet

... a coil of iron. Then, with a peculiar twist of his hand, known only to himself, and resembling that remarkable system known under the name of jiu jitsu among the Japanese, who are the only ones that understand it in all its frightful perfection, he bent the hand of the chief remorselessly over and backward, until the palm gaped like the mouth of a dying fish and the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... business, and in the use of tobacco saturated with opium and of sweetmeats,—the torpor of her Flemish blood conjoined with Oriental indolence; and with all the rest, ill-bred, gluttonous, sensual, arrogant, a Levantine trinket brought to perfection. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... her by—being Alan. There could have been no completer reward. He was the key to the meaning of life, the justification of what must have seemed as incomprehensible as it was odious, had it not all-sufficingly ended in himself. He was a perfect son, and Mrs. Quentin had always hungered for perfection. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... times as if Heaven itself were opened for him, and for days the melodies she played would come ringing through his heart. Often he would sit absorbed at the piano when he should have been practicing his lesson, picking out those melodies and trying with a poignant yearning for perfection to find their proper harmonies. But at such times after he had frittered away a few minutes, Mrs. Nesbit would call down to him, "You, Kenyon," and he would sigh and take up his scales and runs ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... showing such astonishment at its minuteness and perfection of shape that it was immediately apparent she had heard nothing of the amethyst box displayed by Mr. Sinclair in the library. 'I never saw a bottle as small as this before. What is in it, and why were you so afraid of my ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... must be made here as elsewhere for the novelist's tendency to exaggeration—exaggeration of virtue no less than of vice or weakness. In Josiah Bounderby and Stephen Blackpool this characteristic is pronounced. The first, according to John Ruskin, being a dramatic monster, and the second a dramatic perfection. The story first appeared serially in "Household Words" between April 1 and August ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... lord been. And if I had done so at that time, with my heart, will, and thought, I had passed all the knights that were in the Sangreal except Sir Galahad, my son. And therefore, lady, sithen ye have taken you to perfection, I must needs take me to perfection, of right. For I take record of God, in you I have had mine earthly joy; and if I had found you now so disposed, I had cast me to have had you into ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... strictly and literally true. The consequence of such strange blunders is what might be naturally expected; the voice, forced out of its natural compass, prematurely gives way, and at a period of life when the vocal organ, if properly trained and developed, should have arrived at maturity and perfection, the singer's powers are gone, and, in the prime of life, he is compelled to abandon his profession, and subsides into the mere singing-master, to misinstruct the rising generation, and to mar the prospects of others who succeed him, as his own hopes were blighted by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... that happy frame of mind which is best described as the shutting out of all that pertains to the morbid, the gloomy, the fretful, and the discontented. The perfection of cheerfulness is displayed in general good temper united to much kindliness of heart. It arises partly from personal goodness, and partly from belief in the goodness of others. Its face is ever directed toward happiness. It sees "the glory in the grass, the sunshine ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... of this profession than by those of all the others. This is a great step in moral civilization; for the country that most feels the ascendancy of the law, and that least feels that of arms, is nearest to the summit of human perfection. When asked which profession takes rank in America, I tell them the law in influence, and the church in deference. Some of my moustachoed auditors stare at this reply; for here the sword has precedence ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... forth Ferrers anxiously, but the door opened, and Lieutenant Dick Prescott strode in, looking the perfection ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... executed; and curious researches, to charades and other insignificant puzzles. With such, an author is an idler who will not be idle, amusing or fatiguing others who are completely so. The result of a work of genius is contracted to the art of writing; but this art is only its last perfection. Inspiration is drawn from a deeper source; enthusiasm is diffused through contagious pages; and without these movements of the soul, how poor and artificial a thing is that sparkling composition which flashes ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... room, pretty and tasteful, but not so superb; into Rose's, very disordered, and littered, and characteristic; into papa's, big, carpetless, fireless, dreadfully grim and unlike papa himself; into Grace's, the perfection of order and taste, and then Eeny stopped, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... in rapt admiration. Across the river a shower had fallen, and the clouds, clearing away abruptly, had left there a twin rainbow of matchless perfection. Its double arch was poised as accurately over the town as if it had been painted there. Each hoop was flawless in form, lovely in hue, tenderly luminous, exquisite in purity. Never had I seen the double iris ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... and spanker. She was now upon the larboard tack. Having stood on a sufficient distance, Captain Blyth went in stays, and the ship was again headed for the barque. Now came the only delicate part of the operation. But the skipper was an accomplished seaman, and he managed his part of the work to perfection, bringing the Flying Cloud up alongside the barque so close to leeward that there was only bare room for the boat between the two hulls; and at the proper moment the main-topsail was backed and the way of the ship stopped. A rope's-end, to which the other end ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... society success he was in Boston. That has a great deal to do with it from the first. Then another thing is caution— discreetness; not saying anything censorious or critical of other men, no matter what they do. And Dan Mavering is the perfection of prudence, because he's the perfection ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the passion for visible beauty, and chiefly the visible beauty of our land, will here show itself clearly,—a sense of nature not merely sensuous, but thrilling with hidden and mystic life. We shall find such perfection in this more emotional and poetic side of Irish character as will leave little for coming ages to add. In these two early epochs we shall see the perfecting of the natural man; the moulding of rounded, gracious and harmonious lives, inspired with ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... will be more than that of Bodies. We'll get Subjects for the King, and Servants for Christ, and where will the Unchastity of this Matrimony be? And who can tell but we may live together like Joseph and Mary? And in the mean Time, we'll learn to be Virgins, we don't arrive at Perfection all at once. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... responsible Englishmen in time of war to "speak and write as though they belonged to the enemy,"—whether due to an exaggerated regard for our traditional freedom of speech, or to a failure to recognise that the altered conditions produced by the extension and perfection of telegraphic communication, and the development of the Press throughout the civilised world, gave such utterances a value in international relations altogether different from that possessed (say) by similar utterances on the part of the anti-nationalists during the Napoleonic wars—is a circumstance ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... have drawn all the sustenance I can draw from him; and, therefore, it (that part which I did not absorb) concerns me no more. And the same with Gautier. Mdlle. de Maupin, that godhead of flowing line, that desire not "of the moth for the star," but for such perfection of arm and thigh as leaves passion breathless and fain of tears, is now, if I take up the book and read, weary and ragged as a spider's web, that has hung the winter through in the dusty, forgotten corner of a forgotten room. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... sanctity of the mortified monks made a deep and solemn impression on the tender hearts of the young visitors, who felt the delicacy of their position in enjoying a forbidden hospitality. The example of the evangelical perfection practised by these holy servants of God insensibly drew Charles and Henry to love the sublime virtues they practised. Nothing impressed them more than the solemn chant of the Office at midnight. The slow, solemn enunciation of each word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... yourself with watching one little rough place that whirls swiftly round, stops with a jerk, turns hesitatingly one side and the other, then, yielding to a new impulse, flies round and round again till you are dizzy. You look with great complacency at the tightening twist, now brought almost to perfection. You turn it carelessly in your fingers, scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom. Ah! your imprudent friend, without any warning, gives it a final pull to stretch it into shape. The twine slips from your ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... was probably a lady's nightgear, of imperial splendour. So she probably had spoken rather at random; and, indeed, seemed to think apology necessary. She took advantage of the end of an episode to say, while contemplating the perfection of two unimpeachable cuffs:—"So long as the others don't give theirselves no airs." Isolated certainly, as to structure; but, after all, has speech any use except to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... pines, so gray and old, Storms to brave, with thunderbolts to sport? And, ye hills, that ye the heavens uphold? And, ye heavens, that ye the suns support! Boasts the graybeard, who on haughty deeds As on billows, seeks perfection's height? Boasts the hero, whom his prowess leads Up to future glory's temple bright! If the gnawing worms the floweret blast, Who can madly think he'll ne'er decay? Who above, below, can hope to last, If the young man's life thus ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Hurst" was, as befitted its Chatelaine, the most Elizabethanly complete abode in Riseholme, the rest of the village in its due degree, fell very little short of perfection. It had but its one street some half mile in length but that street was a gem of mediaeval domestic architecture. For the most part the houses that lined it were blocks of contiguous cottages, which had been converted either singly or by twos and threes into dwellings containing ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... astonishment, although I had been accustomed to fast vessels. The Francesca was an exceedingly fine and handsome vessel, of enormous beam, and sitting very low upon the water, but the pace at which she was travelling conclusively demonstrated that, beamy as she was, her lines must be the very perfection of draughting; indeed this was proved by the ease with which she appeared to glide along the surface of, rather than through, the water, her progress being marked by singularly little disturbance of the element, considering her very high rate of speed. ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... Academy; the society papers humbly reported her doings, her sayings, and her conquests; royalties smiled approvingly on this queen of fashion, and not a single soul, Lady Lucille herself least of all, realized that this perfection was but the hollow husk and shell of beauty without heart or soul; that behind the lovely face, within the graceful form, lurked as selfish and ignoble a nature as that which stirs the blood of ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... right to be angry; she was not sinful, like nurse, when she got into her tantrums. As to father, he was never cross. He did look tired and disturbed sometimes. It must be because he was sorry for the rest of the world. Yes, father and mother were perfection. It was a great support to know this. It was a very great honor to have been born their little girl. Every morning when Sibyl knelt to pray, and every evening when she offered up her nightly petitions, she thanked God most earnestly for having given her as parents those two perfect people known ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... no time, but, actually, the restricted Peninsula suits the Turkish tactics to a 'T.' They have always been good at trench work where their stupid men have only simple, straightforward duties to perform, namely, in sticking on and shooting anything that comes up to them. They do this to perfection; I never saw braver soldiers, in fact, than some of the best of them. When we advance, no matter the shelling we give them, they stand right up firing coolly and straight over their parapets. Also they have unlimited ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... the very dawning of life, reach at a single tide the high-water-mark of my earthly bliss—never to be reached again by me on this side of the ivory gate—and discover that to make the perfection of human happiness endure there must be something more than a sweet French garden, a small French wheelbarrow, and a nice little English boy who spoke French and had the love of approbation—a fourth dimension ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... of these, however, I must except the beauteous nymph Fayaway, who was my peculiar favourite. Her free pliant figure was the very perfection of female grace and beauty. Her complexion was a rich and mantling olive, and when watching the glow upon her cheeks I could almost swear that beneath the transparent medium there lurked the blushes ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... the balls. Young ladies go invariably with chaperones; following each dance there is a brief promenade, whereafter the young ladies are returned to their duennas—who, if they be Charleston dowagers in perfection, usually carry turkey-feather fans. Cards are filled months in advance. As lately as the year 1912 every other dance was a square dance; since then, however, I believe that square dances have gone the way of candle-light. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... hast seen what is the form of perfect and imperfect good, now I think we must show in what this perfection of happiness is placed. And inquire first whether there can be any such good extant in the world, as thou hast defined; lest, contrary to truth, we be deceived with an empty show of thought. But it cannot be denied that there is some such thing extant which is as it were ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... look for perfection in a man," his mother informed him seriously. "He is criticized much less severely than a woman. It seems to be the universal rule, though I have sometimes thought it wasn't absolutely just and that it had its drawbacks. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... dark, but dull, and without meaning; the hair was black and glossy, but coarse; and there was the admired crop—a long crop, much like the tail of a horse—a switch tail. The fine figure was meagre, prim, and constrained. The beauty, the grace, and the elegance existed, no doubt, in their utmost perfection, but only in the imagination of her partial young sister. Her father, as Harriet told me, was familiarly called 'Jew Westbrook,' and Eliza greatly resembled one of the dark-eyed daughters ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... bobolink chatters in notes of perfection, The oriole sings a love-song to his mate, The whippoorwill clings to his perch for protection, The crow laughs ha! ha! when the ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... even yet, that we find a writer wholly unembarrassed by and in revolt against the old theory of the necessity of perfection in some one at least of the characters of his story. "Neither Luther nor John Bunyan," says the author of this book, "would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is excellent, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... dropping in upon him, and conversing with him, as best the few and labored English phrases at his command would allow. Frowenfeld soon noticed that he never entered the shop unless its proprietor was alone, never sat down, and always, with the same perfection of dignity that characterized all his movements, departed immediately upon the arrival of any third person. One day, when the landlord was making one of these standing calls,—he always stood' beside a high glass case, on the side of the shop opposite the counter,—he noticed in Joseph's hand a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... mistakes, but never failed to report such mistakes to Shoop. Lorry preferred to give his own version of an affair that he had mishandled rather than to have to explain some other version later. He was no epitome of perfection. He was inclined to be arbitrary when he knew he was in the right. Argument irritated him. He considered his "Yes" or ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... the children of adulterers, they shall not come to their perfection, and the seed of an unrighteous ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous

... that all parts of the organizations and instincts offer, at least, individual differences; that there is a struggle for existence, which leads to the preservation of profitable deviations of structure or instinct; and, lastly, that gradations in the state of perfection of each organ may have existed, each good of its kind." He says, over and over, that if beauty or any variation of structure can be shown to be intended, it would "annihilate his theory." His doctrine is that such unintended variations, which happen to be useful ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... nothingness. Each plays its part, however small. We can't all be included in the wonderful final chords. Our place may seem trivial to us, and yet in some sense we may be sure we are all contributors to the unity and perfection of the whole. That ought to be enough. No one note achieves individual immortality, but each does something to assure the immortality of the composition of which it forms a part. If we don't believe ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... necessitous, but if we turn our eye to his make and temper, his agility, his courage, his arms, and his force, we shall find that his advantages hold proportion with his wants.... In man alone this unnatural conjunction of infirmity and of necessity may be observed in the greatest perfection. Not only the food which is required for his sustenance flies his search and approach, or at least requires his labour to be produced, but he must be possessed of clothes and lodging to defend him against ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... peaceful, no peace so idyllic as that which is to be found on a Western ranch on a fine summer evening. Life at such a time and in such a place is at its smoothest, its almost Utopian perfection. The whole atmosphere is laden with a sense of good-fellowship between men and between beasts. The day's work is over, and men idle and smoke, awaiting the pleasures of an ample fare with appetites healthily sharp-set, and lounge contentedly, contemplating their coming evening's ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... her all due praise for her domestic acquirements, justice compels us to remark that Aunt Comfort was not a literary character. She could get up a shirt to perfection, and made irreproachable chowder, but she was not a woman of letters. In fact, she had arrived at maturity at a time when negroes and books seldom came in familiar contact; and if the truth must be told, she cared very little ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... world peacefully busied for the most part upon armaments and the perfection of explosives, war came; came the shock of realising that the guns were going off, that the masses of inflammable material all over the world ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... the greatest man intellectually that Ori had ever met, so John L. Sullivan, the famous fighter, was the greatest man in that line of his time. The islanders, in common with other primitive peoples, admire physical perfection tremendously, and feats of strength are celebrated in fable, song, and story. To Ori there was nothing incongruous in placing John L. Sullivan, the famous prizefighter, and Robert Louis Stevenson, the noted ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... contrasted colour in a room, and to select beautiful things in the way of furniture and belongings; but what is to save her from the thousand and one mistakes possible to inexperience in this combination of things which make lasting enjoyment and appropriate perfection in a house? How can she know which rooms will be benefited by sombre or sunny tints, and which exposure will give full sway to her favourite colour or colours? How can she have learned the reliability or want of reliability ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler

... equivalent to saying that with him oratory had not degenerated into rhetoric. The few fragments that survive awaken our wonder, first for their marvellous simplicity and clearness: then, for the dexterous perfection of their form. The balance of the rhythmic clauses never obscures or overloads the sense. Gracchus could tell a tale, like that of the cruel wrongs inflicted on the allies, which could arouse a thrill of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... told us last winter in a club at Washington that Wagner’s was the only European music that he appreciated and enjoyed. “You see,” he added, “music is a much older art with us than in Europe, and has naturally reached a far greater perfection. The German school has made a long step in advance, and I can now foresee a day not far distant when, under its influence, your music will ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... them with whips; Sir Thomas More would chastise them with scorpions; and the philosopher of the Utopia, the friend of Erasmus, whose life was of blameless beauty, whose genius was cultivated to the highest attainable perfection, was to prove to the world that the spirit of persecution is no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the bigot, of the fanatic, but may co-exist with the fairest graces of the human character. The lives of ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... herself to perfection, fully conscious of the influence which a woman's costume is apt to exercise over the heart of the man ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... horse and was a goin' to de house talkin' all de time 'bout crops. Spyin' de dogs lyin' 'round in de shade, him say: 'Dr. Wright, I am a 'culiar man. I love de ladies and admire them much but, if you'll pardon my weakness, a fine hound dog comes nearer perfection, in my eye, than anything our Father in heaven ever made to live on this ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... classical tradition was never broken.... In the social dissolution of the last century, all disappeared except this ideal. In fact, in that first enthusiasm, when the minds of men confidently sought final perfection, it passed from the schools into life, ruled the imagination, inflamed the will. People lived and died Romanly.... The situations that Alfieri has chosen in his tragedies have a visible relation to ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... of the American quilt at its best is found in the "Indiana Wreath." Its pleasing design, harmonious colours, and exquisite workmanship reveal to us the quilter's art in its greatest perfection. This quilt was made by Miss E. J. Hart, a most versatile and skilful needlewoman, in 1858, as shown by the small precise figures below the large wreath. The design is exceedingly well balanced in that the entire quilt surface is uniformly covered and ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... who is the perfection of tact and diplomacy—probably on that account he failed for the Diplomatic—chipped in with an anecdote about a man who was rating the waiter at an adjoining table, and I held my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he held my hand for a minute ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... neighbors to him in any striking way. We know that he wrought no miracles until after he had entered upon his public ministry. We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and kindness. There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the law of God perfectly. But his perfection was not something startling. There was no halo about his head, no transfiguration, that awed men. We are told that he grew in favor with men as well as with God. His religion made his life beautiful and winning, but always so simple and natural that it drew no unusual attention to itself. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... do it? Point out to me the way of this perfection, And I will follow you; for you have made My soul enamored with it, and I cannot Rest satisfied until I find it out. But lead me privately, so that the world Hear not my steps; I would not give occasion For talk among ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... faithfully ushered in the last guest, and had hurried to his place in order to see General Jackson step down the long line of dancers and bow to his partner. Not for worlds would he have missed that bow, to him the perfection of grace ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... no inscriptions, but the beauty of the materials of which it is composed, and the perfection of the work, lead us to attribute its construction to some prince of the XIIth dynasty. An ancient causeway runs from its entrance to what was probably at one time the original margin of the lake. The continual sinking of the level of the Birkeh has left this temple ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... me now put in a word, and tell his reverence a few mortifying truths. Brother monk, thou hast formed in thy solitary cell a phantom of perfection, and wouldst fain thrust that into people's heads, which, when there, poisons the brain, as the gangrene corrupts all the flesh around it. There were men long ago who ventured to judge of the innermost of their ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger



Words linked to "Perfection" :   idol, ideal, paragon, fare-thee-well, culture, finish, gold standard, cultivation, dream, refinement, perfect, flawlessness, intactness, improvement, imperfect, ne plus ultra, state, to perfection, imperfection, perfectionist, polish



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