# "Perfect enemy of good" quote origin
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 9, 2000, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450 "2000-11-09T14:50:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nep)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2000, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450/1 "2000-11-09T14:50:24Z")
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?
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### Author:  [@scratch1300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch1300)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450/2 "2000-11-09T15:06:31Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2000, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450/3 "2000-11-09T15:11:10Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)
#### Post date: [November 9, 2000, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450/4 "2000-11-09T15:19:47Z")
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](http://www.freedomsnest.com/cgi-bin/q.cgi?subject=good)
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### Author:  [@nep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nep)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2000, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450/5 "2000-11-10T08:24:17Z")
I’m enlightened, hoorah! (Thanks.)
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/perfect-enemy-of-good-quote-origin/40450/6 "2013-10-30T00:11:22Z")
This thread is from the year 2000.
Wikipedia has a short but solid treatment of this concept:
> **[Perfect is the enemy of good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good)**
>
> Perfect is the enemy of good is an aphorism which means insistence on perfection often prevents implementation of good improvements. The Pareto principle or 80–20 rule explains this numerically. For example, it commonly takes 20% of the full time to complete 80% of a task while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort. Achieving absolute perfection may be impossible and so, as increasing effort results in diminishing returns, further activity becomes increasingly inefficien
> I...
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)