Norman Cousins Quotes

No single man can be taken as a model for a perfect figure, for no man lives on earth who is endowed with the whole of beauty.

Unless they're superhuman, nobody's going to look perfect all the time.

Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.

I don't think you'll ever have a perfect world because we humans are prone to error, and so we're always in search of an upgrade.

No human being should be a role model. We all have flaws.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

I am not a perfectionist. Perfection doesn't exist in real life. It's a wrong title for me.

Every person is flawed. Do you think perfection exists? You, me, everyone - we have strengths and shortcomings; that's what makes us human.

There is nothing perfect, no one can be perfect, and perfectionism is something you shouldn't chase.

While 'Iron Man' is tremendous fun, it's another reminder of the pressure on all of us to make ourselves increasingly perfect and a little less human. And that is something it is important to resist.

Perfection is only an ideal for man; it cannot be attained, for man is made imperfect.

Man is rotten with perfection.

Perfect people don't drink, don't fight, don't lie, don't make mistakes and...don't exist

We've been expected to be perfect but we aren't. We're still human.

Aus so krummen Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made.

If you're looking for perfection, look in the mirror. If you find it there, expect it elsewhere.

It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring on live TV.

In short, if we adhere to the standard of perfection in all our endeavors, we are left with nothing but mathematics and the White Album.

Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens-if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it, we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being which he or she cannot possibly give.

When people insist on perfection or nothing, they get nothing.

Utopias rest on the fallacy that perfection is a legitimate goal of human existence.

If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work. God's work only may express that, but ours may never have that sentence written upon it, Behold it was very good.

O heaven! were man, But constant, he were perfect.

The only man completely at peace is a man without a navel.

The reason I stopped modeling was because I was not pleased with trying to portray something that is impossible to reach. Even when I do photo shoots now for films, I am just not interested in trying to look my best all the time anymore. That pursuit of an impossible perfection seems ridiculous to me now. I would rather show my vulnerabilities or my doubts than try to be something that no one is.