It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.
Interpretation
Striving for perfection is a valuable pursuit, even if it remains unattainable.
This quote suggests that while perfection itself may be an unrealistic goal, having it as a guiding principle can motivate us to improve and advance in our lives. The acknowledgment that perfection is unattainable does not diminish its importance; instead, it highlights the journey of striving toward it as a valuable aspect of personal growth and development.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development, you can use this quote to encourage the audience to pursue their goals.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.
So in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft: With our own feathers, not by others' hands, Are we now smitten.
Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action.
Pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended upon man.
I don't write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me.
Son of Heav'n and Earth, Attend: that thou art happy, owe to God; That thou continuest such, owe to thyself, That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.