Quotes about Perfectionism

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.

She accused him of having grandiose ideas and sloppy habits, a fatal combination for a writer.

There's a line between revision and fretting, just working it to death." —Toni Morrison

Harpists spend half their life tuning and the other half playing out of tune.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

The fear of making mistakes and not doing a particular ministry well has paralyzed many believers, and that is a tragedy. They fail to see that perfectionism is religion (form without power). Excellence is Kingdom. Saying yes to the King is the first step in discipleship. And being driven by love makes it impossible to remain stationary.

We fear saying the wrong thing or using the wrong tone or acting the wrong way. So rather than do it incorrectly, we do nothing at all.

Overreacting may impair our mental functioning. Decisiveness is hindered by worrying about what other people think, telling ourselves we have to be perfect, and telling ourselves to hurry. We falsely believe we can't make the "wrong" choice, we'll never have another chance, and the whole world waits and rises on this particular decision. We don't have to do these things to ourselves.

Forgive me for my unbelief [in myself]. If I realized how valuable I am, my insatiable need for affirmation would be quieted. Forgive me for being such a perfectionist that I resist doing something good out of fear that it won't be great.

The amateur is often unkind or insensitive to others, but she saves her most exquisite cruelty for herself.

Everyone wanted to be the best. Best student. Best servant. Best Christian. They got caught up in it, pressing and pushing until they forgot whom it was they were trying to please.

Alert to the manipulations and machinations of Pharisaical self-righteousness, ragamuffins refuse to surrender control of their lives to rules and regulations. They see that the stale religiosity of legalists, trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, obscures the face of the God of Jesus.