Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Welcome to the Daily Quote – a podcast designed to kickstart your day in a positive way. I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, for September 5th.Today is National Cheese Pizza Day, celebrating the purest, most fundamental form of this beloved dish. While pizza toppings have evolved into endless combinations – from pineapple controversies to gourmet truffle oil creations – the cheese pizza remains the gold standard, the baseline by which all other pizzas are measured.There's something beautifully honest about cheese pizza. It doesn't hide behind fancy ingredients or try to impress with exotic toppings. It's just dough, sauce, and cheese working together in perfect harmony. It's the pizza equivalent of a classic white t-shirt – simple, timeless, and somehow always exactly what you need.And let's be honest, cheese pizza is often the great peacekeeper at group gatherings. When everyone's arguing about pepperoni versus mushrooms, Hawaiian versus meat lovers, cheese pizza quietly sits there being universally acceptable.
Which brings us to the quote of the day....Today's quote comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French aviator and author of "The Little Prince," who said:"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."Saint-Exupéry understood what every great pizza maker knows – true perfection comes from stripping away everything unnecessary until you're left with only what matters most. Cheese pizza embodies this philosophy perfectly.Think about the evolution of pizza. It started simple – flatbread with oil and garlic in ancient times. Then came tomatoes from the New World, then cheese, and eventually we had the fundamental trio that defines pizza today. But then something interesting happened: instead of stopping at perfection, we kept adding. Pepperoni, sausage, peppers, mushrooms, pineapple, barbecue chicken, even mac and cheese toppings.But cheese pizza? It said, "No thank you, I'm perfect as I am." And Saint-Exupéry would have appreciated that confidence – the wisdom to know when you've reached the point where taking anything away would diminish you, and adding anything would be unnecessary.I remember working with a chef who taught me this principle. When I suggested adding herbs to a simple tomato sauce, he made me taste it first. "Perfect," he said. "Now, what would you take away to make room for those herbs? The sweetness of the tomatoes? The richness of the olive oil? Sometimes the best thing you can add to a recipe is restraint."That's the wisdom both Saint-Exupéry and cheese pizza offer us: sometimes the most powerful choice is knowing when to stop.There's something admirable about cheese pizza's commitment to restraint. In a world that's constantly trying to add more features, more options, more everything, cheese pizza remains confidently minimal, proving that some things achieve perfection through subtraction, not addition.So today, as we celebrate National Cheese Pizza Day, let's embrace Saint-Exupéry's insight about true perfection. Whether you're working on a project, crafting a message, or just trying to live well, ask yourself: what can I remove rather than what can I add?That's going to do it for today. I'm Andrew McGivern, signing off for now, but I'll be back tomorrow – same pod time, same pod station – with another Daily Quote.