QuoteProject
Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
W. Somerset Maugham
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Perfection can lead to monotony and lack of excitement.

W. Somerset Maugham's quote suggests that striving for perfection may result in a loss of vitality and spontaneity. When something is perfect, it can become unengaging or dull, as it lacks the imperfections and variations that often bring character and interest to life.

Themes

PerfectionDullnessMonotonyImperfectionVitality

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about creativity, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of embracing flaws.

More from W. Somerset Maugham

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pondered for twenty years the problem whether he loved liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved conversation because it made him thirsty.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Are you sure you can prevent yourself from falling in love one of these days? Such things do happen, you know, even to the most prudent men.' Simon gave him a strange, one might even have thought a hostile, look. I should tear it out of my heart as I'd wrench out of my mouth a rotten tooth.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willing avoids the sight of distress.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
W. Somerset MaughamRead

Similar quotes

A court is an assembly of noble and distinguished beggars.
Charles Maurice De TalleyrandRead
It's never acceptable to target civilians. It violates the Geneva Accords, it violates the international law of war and it violates all principles of morality.
Alan DershowitzRead
Homer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that.
Umberto EcoRead
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem - a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
Ambrose BierceRead
Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'
Angela DavisRead
You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.