Word: perfectionist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Denver University's Law College dean was a frail, ailing man. But he was also a perfectionist, and it was with characteristic intensity that William Gordon Johnston, 54, attacked the final 48 hours of his life. He worked a full day at the university, stayed up late polishing a speech he would make the following evening. Next morning. Dean Johnston went by the campus to catch up on his paperwork, drove to Boulder for a Colorado State Bar Association meeting, stayed on for a banquet of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. He delivered the banquet address, at meal...
...Loner. Son of a painter, Crivelli studied under the Paduan master Francesco Squarcione, who also taught Andrea Mantegna. Squarcione was a perfectionist who made his pupils spend day after day copying veined marble and Roman bronzes, the more intricate the better. Their paintings were fastidious, and their surfaces glowed like enamel. Crivelli never lost his sternly disciplined technique or his ability to make a canvas sparkle as if he had been working, not with brush and paint, but with gold and jewels...
Dread of dirt (mysophobia) goes hand in overwashed hand with the cleanliness compulsion. The victim must carry out his cleansing routine even though he knows it is unreasonable. Otherwise, he finds himself the prisoner of intolerable anxiety. The cleanliness compulsion commonly arises from conflict involving a strict and perfectionist parent. The victim begins by being simply overneat and fussy about cleanliness. Then he gets into conflict with all the people around him who do not comply with his compulsive standards. His compulsion may drive him to excessive washing of his body, of clothes, and even doorknobs. (One legendary American tycoon...
Body German. Since his death in 1956, Brecht has become a worldwide vogue. In West Germany, he has displaced Shaw in frequency of production, and ranks after Shakespeare, Goethe and Schiller. East Germany lavishly maintains his personal repertory company, the Berliner Ensemble, with its perfectionist troupe led by Brecht's widow. Paris audiences have been flocking to The Good Woman of Setzuan and Arturo Ui. London is temporarily Brechtless but saw four of his plays last season. A five-year off-Broadway run of The Threepenny Opera not long ago chalked up a New York theater record by passing...
Everywhere that Oscar went, the ball was sure to go. He early became a basketball perfectionist. Nothing stopped his dribbling practice-eating supper, watching TV, reading. "I've got to control it," he would tell his brother Bailey, who later became good enough himself to win a spot on the Harlem Globetrotters. "I've got to control the dribble." Recalls his mother: "You couldn't sleep at night with that basketball going all the time. Bump! Bump! Bump...