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But at the time when he wrote, Englishmen, with the rarest exceptions, wrote only in French or Latin; and when they began to write in English, a man of genius, to interpret and improve on him, was not found for a long time.

If you look in the dictionary under 'perfectionist,' you see Henry Selick correcting the definition of perfectionist in the dictionary. I mean, he is so meticulous.

It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.

Well, with the French language, which I understood and spoke, however imperfectly, and read in great quantities, at certain times, the matter I suppose was slightly different from either Latin or Greek.

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint.

During the year 1894, Pierre Curie wrote me letters that seem to me admirable in their form. No one of them was very long, for he had the habit of concise expression, but all were written in a spirit of sincerity and with an evident anxiety to make the one he desired as a companion know him as he was.

In England only uneducated people show off their knowledge; nobody quotes Latin or Greek authors in the course of conversation, unless he has never read them.

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

I'm a perfectionist, which I think is a mistake.