Good Things (Thomas Sowell)

Creators Syndicate ^ | July 19, 2011 | Thomas Sowell

[bvw]

“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.” — French
“Il meglio è l’inimico del bene.” — Italian

From Voltaire, La Bégueule (1772)

In French he wrote “the better”, in Italian he wrote “the best”.

Brevity needs context. In Russia the saying ends up like my parable. Interesting that Voltaire distinguished between France the epicurean culture of the tome, and Italy, then in a religious revival. The playwright must write to his audience.

[bvw]

“epicurean culture of the time”

[rockinqsranch]

Thanks for the ping jaz.

[fr_freak]

The trouble with uncommon short proverbs is that they are not longer enough.

Well, maybe it makes more sense in Russian.

[BradyLS]

...IOW, it’s meaningless pablum.

"Don't delay. The best is the enemy of the good. By this I mean that a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. War is a very simple thing, and the determining characteristics are self-confidence, speed and audacity. None of these things can be done perfectly, but all can be done good."—U.S. General George Patton

I try to do this at work. Sometimes I'll tell a co-worker or supervisor, "If we complete the immediate task this way, we can have it done today and behind us. Then we can focus on that larger task yet ahead of us." Naturally, folks don't being told anything by a peer or a subordinate. So simple tasks evolve into unnecessarily complex ones that push a bigger task off schedule. All in the name of making the smaller task "the best it can be."