"Perfectible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most nearly this idea—That within the limits of right, all should flow from the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted by the law or by force, except ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... in which they bid fair to remain till the Day of Judgment, if there is to be such a day; and before that time, it will require some trouble to make them fit to appear in company with angels without disgracing humanity. God bless you! I feel a conviction that we have some perfectible principle in our present vestment, which will not be destroyed just as we begin to be sensible of improvement; and I care not what habit it next puts on, sure that it will be wisely formed to suit a higher state of existence. Thinking of death makes us tenderly cling to our affections; with more ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... put this in rhyme, on the whole, Very well, with sublime illustration. Man's heart Is a mystery, doubtless. You trace it in art:— The Greek Psyche,—that's beauty,—the perfect ideal. But then comes the imperfect, perfectible real, With its pain'd aspiration and strife. In those pale Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it prevail. You have studied all this. Then, the universe, too, Is not a mere house to be lived in, for you. Geology opens the mind. So you know Something ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... whence there followed so great a rebellion of the carnal appetite against the reason: nor was the body wholly subject to the soul; whence arose death and other bodily defects. For life and soundness of body depend on the body being subject to the soul, as the perfectible is subject to its perfection. Consequently, on the other hand, death, sickness, and all defects of the body are due to the lack of the body's subjection to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... being the sovereign, absolute, highly synthetic being, the infinitely wise and free, and therefore indefectible and holy, Me, it is plain that man, the syncretism of the creation, the point of union of all the potentialities manifested by the creation, physical, organic, mental, and moral; man, perfectible and fallible, does not satisfy the conditions of Divinity as he, from the nature of his mind, must conceive them. Neither is he God, nor can he, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon |
