"Perfect enemy of good" quote origin

The line “The perfect is the enemy of the good” or “Better is the enemy of good enough” – who said it, and what is its exact phrasing?

IIRC, it’s Voltaire. The way I remember it is, “The good is the enemy of the best”, but I can’t find any sources.

A friend asked me about this several years ago, and I ran across the answer in one of the annotations in “The Annotated Stories of Edgar Allan Poe”. I don’t have my copy here at work, or I’d tell you. The original WAS in French, I recall, but I’m not sure if it was, in fact, Voltaire.

Yes, the famous quote is from our own Francois Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire.

http://www.freedomsnest.com/cgi-bin/q.cgi?subject=good

I’m enlightened, hoorah! (Thanks.)

This thread is from the year 2000.

Wikipedia has a short but solid treatment of this concept:

It mentions Voltaire, the Pareto Principle (or the 80/20 rule), the golden mean, and thoughts of other wise men.

Voltaire: Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien
Dit que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

(In his writings, a wise Italian
says that the best is the enemy of the good)