key question

[reynt0]

On Sun, 28 Feb 2010, David Shaw wrote:

> On Feb 28, 2010, at 4:20 PM, reynt0 wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 27 Feb 2010, Robert J. Hansen wrote:
>> . . .
>>> The perfect is the enemy of the good.
>>
>> Just to note, did RJH actually intend to write
>> "...the enemy of the good enough.", which I believe is
>> the usual quote?  The two are rather different ideas,
>> even more so if morality has been included as an aspect
>> of the discussion.
>
> Voltaire.  "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien".  Rob's translation is as 
> good as any I've seen.

I would understood the Voltaire as a comment about people
who use betterment (cf "Progress") as justification for
change, but I see your point.  What I was thinking of was
the "Worse is Better" theme, cf
http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html   and 
http://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html .
And FWIW, to be thorough, I'll toss in:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire   and
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_B%C3%A9gueule   :-)