... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.

We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.

He was the picture of perfection. We just knew he'd make a perfect trainer for some of our horses.

No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain's heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from ordinary humanity; there seemed no danger he feared, no effort too great for his limitless energies.

You are perfect, Avery. Just like you are, flaws and everything.

The human beings at the helm of the new nation [USA], whatever their limitations [slave owners, anti-democracy], were truly revolutionary. The theory of liberty born in that era, the seed of the idea, was perfect.

More important, the idea itself carried within it the moral power to correct the contradictions in its execution that were obvious from the very birth of the new nation.