Excess Quotes - Page 23

Profusion gives pleasure up to a point; then we become squeamish.

Mason Cooley

Giving, Pleasure

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On the plane, an eight-year-old with an excess of testosterone keeps running across my feet. Finally I grab him by his T-shirt and say, very sweetly, 'Listen, darling, if you don't stop trampling me I'm going to make you sit on my lap while I tell you my entire life story. Including a lot of details about drug rehab and my divorce.' He goes back to his seat.

Rosanne Cash

Running, Divorce, Years

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What the altar-bound of today end up buying from their numberless vendors is a dog's breakfast of bridal excess - part society wedding of the twenties, part Long Island Italian wedding of the fifties. It's The Philadelphia Story and The Wedding Singer served up together in one curious and costly buffet.

Caitlin Flanagan

Dog, Italian, Philadelphia

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The immediate cause of the increase of population is the excess of the births above deaths; and the rate of increase, or the period of doubling, depends upon the proportion which the excess of the births above the deaths bears to the population.

Thomas Malthus

Population, Causes, Bears

THOMAS MALTHUS, JULIAN HUXLEY, FREDERICK OSBORN (1960). “ON POPULATION THREE ESSAYS”

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when I came to know Greek art I instantly understood that excess and perfection are enemies; yet on the other hand this world and the millions of worlds around us live by fire ... !

Ethel Smyth

Art, Hands, Fire

Ethel Smyth (1946). “Impressions that remained”

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It is supposable that, in the eyes of angels, a struggle down a dark lane and a battle of Leipsic differ in nothing but excess of wickedness.

Robert Aris Willmott

Struggle, Eye, Angel

Robert Aris Willmott (1866). “Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature”, p.120

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This isn't a picture filled with wonder and a sense of fun; it's so jaded and crass that I almost wonder if it's a highly unscientific experiment designed to gauge how little audiences will settle for these days. Manic and multicolored, "Speed Racer" is an excess of nothingness.

Stephanie Zacharek

Fun, Gauges, Littles

"Speed Racer" by Stephanie Zacharek, www.salon.com. May 09, 2008.

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I've always thought of this city as Disneyland for adults. ... There's no danger of Las Vegas expiring from an excess of good taste.

Mary Jo Putney

Vegas, Cities, Taste

Mary Jo Putney (2000). “The burning point”

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The United Nation's goal is to reduce population selectively by encouraging abortion, forced sterilization, and control of human reproduction, and regards two-thirds of the human population as excess baggage, with 350,000 people to be eliminated per day.

Jacques Yves Cousteau

Two, Excess Baggage, People

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Indians have no monopoly on environmentalism. That's one of the great myths. But we were subsistence livers. They're two different things. Environmentalism is a conscious choice and subsistence is the absence of choice. We had to use everything to survive. And now that we've been assimilated and colonized and we have luxuries and excesses, we're just as wasteful as other people.

Sherman Alexie

Two, Luxury, People

Interview with Joelle Fraser, ir.uiowa.edu. 2000.

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the excess of all good things is mischievous.

Lydia M. Child

Good Things, Mischievous, Extremes

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One study on the treatment of asthma patients conducted by researchers John Goyeche, Dr. Ago, and Dr. Ikemi, suggests that any effective treatment should address suppressed emotions-such as anxiety and self-image-as well as the physical dimension. To achieve this, they encourage correction of poor posture, and helping the person relax the irrelevant respiratory muscles while restoring full diaphragmatic breathing. They also recommended finding ways for getting rid of excess mucus. The good news is that a well rounded breath practice will do all these things.

Donna Farhi

Self, Practice, Breathing

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The body, enervated by the excesses of the preceding day, weighs down and prostates the mind also.

Horace

Mind, Body, Down And

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Setting aside the vast herd which shows no definable character at all, it seems to me that the minority distinguished by what is commonly regarded as an excess of sin is very much more admirable than the minority distinguished by an excess of virtue. My experience of the world has taught me that the average wine-bibbler is a far better fellow than the average prohibitionist, and that the average rogue is better company than the average poor drudge, and that the worst white-slave trader of my acquaintance is a decenter man than the best vice crusader.

H. L. Mencken

Wine, Character, Men

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It is a common thing to screw up justice to the pitch of an injury. A man may be over-righteous, and why not over-grateful, too? There is a mischievous excess that borders so close upon ingratitude that it is no easy matter to distinguish the one from the other; but, in regard that there is good-will in the bottom of it, however distempered; for it is effectually but kindness out of the wits.

Seneca the Younger

Kindness, Grateful, Men

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It is only luxury and avarice that make poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business, and when we have provided against cold, hunger, and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.

Seneca the Younger

Vanity, Luxury, Doe

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As fate is inexorable, and not to be moved either with tears or reproaches, an excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter; while, on the other hand, not to mourn at all is insensibility.

Seneca the Younger

Laughter, Fate, Hands

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There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Happiness, Power, Misery

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Remember, that when I speak of pleasures I always mean the elegant pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of a swine. I mean la bonne chère, short of gluttony; wine, infinitely short of drunkenness; play, without the least gaming; and gallantry, without debauchery.

Lord Chesterfield

Wine, Mean, Play

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The most culpable of the excesses of Liberty is the harm she does herself.

Sophie Swetchine

Liberty, Doe, Harm

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Although a firm swat could bring a recalcitrant child swiftly into line, the changes were usually external, lasting only as long as the swatter remained in view....Permanent transformation had to be internal....The habits of self discipline, as laborious and frustrating as they were to achieve, offered the only real possibility of keeping children safe from their own excesses as well as the omnipresent dangers of society.

Mary Blakely

Children, Real, Self

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Rather than an excess of firearms there's a shortage of faith and family that has a lot more to do with what happened out in Littleton. Let's face it, our public square is more hostile to religion than it is to Marilyn Manson.

Kate O'Beirne

Squares, Religion, Faces

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To regard the excesses of the passions as maladies has so salutary an effect that this idea renders all moral sermons useless.

Pierre-Claude-Victor Boiste

Passion, Ideas, Useless

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A skittish motorbike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness.

T. E. Lawrence

Animal, Blood, Riding

T.E. Lawrence (2016). “The Mint: Lawrence after Arabia”, p.230, I.B.Tauris

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Of all faults the greatest is the excess of impious terror, dishonoring divine grace. He who despairs wants love, wants faith; for faith, hope, and love are three torches which blend their light together, nor does the one shine without the other.

Pietro Metastasio

Light, Shining, Grace

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