"Perfect is the enemy of good" is an aphorism that means insistence on perfection often prevents implementation of good improvements. The phrase argues that achieving absolute perfection may be impossible; one should not let the struggle for perfection stand in the way of appreciating or executing on something that is imperfect but still meritable.
In the English-speaking world the aphorism is commonly attributed to Voltaire, who quoted an Italian proverb in his Questions sur l'Encyclopédie in 1770: "Il meglio è l'inimico del bene". [1] It subsequently appeared in his moral poem, La Bégueule , which starts: [2]
Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien | In his writings, a wise Italian |
Previously, around 1726, in his Pensées , Montesquieu wrote "Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien" ('The best is the mortal enemy of the good'). [3]
Aristotle and other classical philosophers propounded the principle of the golden mean which counsels against extremism in general. [4]
Its sense in English literature can be traced back to Shakespeare. [5] In his tragedy King Lear (1606), the Duke of Albany warns of "striving to better, oft we mar what's well" and in Sonnet 103:
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
The 1893 Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources lists a similar proverb, which it claims is of Chinese provenance: "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one".
More recent applications include Robert Watson-Watt propounding a "cult of the imperfect", which he stated as "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes"; [6] economist George Stigler's assertion that "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport"; [7] [8] and, in the field of computer program optimization, Donald Knuth's statement that "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". [9] In marketing, the concept of "quality creep" is also recognised as counterproductive. [10]