Excess Quotes - Page 6

• Abortion... was probably regarded by the average Roman of the later days of Paganism much as Englishmen in the last century regarded convivial excesses, as certainly wrong, but so venial as scarcely to deserve censure.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Average, Abortion, Feminist

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1869). “History of European morals: from Augustus to Charlemagne. II”, p.23

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess.

  Bill Watterson

  Indulge In, Financial, Kind

  "The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury". Book by Bill Watterson, October 1990.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.

  Mitch Albom

  Mother, Father, Italian

  "For One More Day". Book by Mitch Albom, September 26, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness, and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was time when they both loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other moral trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Grateful, Adversity, Hatred

  "Love in the Time of Cholera". Book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1985.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not lazy. I'm simply judicious about excess movement.

  Jen Lancaster

  Lazy, Movement

  Jen Lancaster (2008). “Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest To Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, Or Why Pi e is Not The Answer”, p.15, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bend down, bend down. Excess is the only ease, so bend. The sun is in the tree. Put your mouth on mine. Bend down beam & slash, for Dread is dreamed-up-scenes of what comes after death. Is being fled from what bends down in pain. The elbow bends in the brain, lifts the cup. The worst is yet to dream you up, so bend down the intrigue you dreamed. Flee the hayneedle in the brain's tree. Excess allures by leaps. Stars burn clean. Oriole bitches and gleams. Dread is the fear of being less forever. So bend. Bend down and kiss what you see.

  Stan Rice

  Dream, Stars, Pain

  9 Copy quote

• Writing means revealing oneself to excess.

  Franz Kafka

  Writing, Mean, Crafts

  Franz Kafka (2013). “Letters to Felice”, p.156, Schocken

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• At the beginning of their careers many writers have a need to overwrite. They choose carefully turned-out phrases; they want to impress their readers with their large vocabularies. By the excesses of their language, these young men and women try to hide their sense of inexperience. With maturity the writer becomes more secure in his ideas. He finds his real tone and develops a simple and effective style.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Real, Writing, Maturity

  4 Copy quote

• Our tolerance of the intolerable found a low threshold as early as the late 1950s with the grotesque excesses of McCarthyism, which destroyed so many honest lives, and then with the insane nuclear arms race and confrontations.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Race, Tolerance, Insane

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wonder about death, I who may never know it. It looks much like ecstacy, the way they open their mouths as they drown, the way their fingers dig into your skin. Their eyes are wide and startled and they trash in your hands as though with an excess of passion.

  Holly Black

  Passion, Eye, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• If a thing can be said in ten words, I may be relied upon to take a hundred to say it. I ought to apologize for that. I ought to prune, pare and extirpate excess growth, but I will not. I like words—strike that, I love words—and while I am fond of the condensed and economical use of them in poetry, in song lyrics, in Twitter, in good journalism and smart advertising, I love the luxuriant profusion and mad scatter of them too.

  Stephen Fry

  Song, Smart, Mad

  4 Copy quote

• These are the Seven Deadly Sins: Avarice, Envy, Pride, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Sloth. These are the seven deadly sins: venality, paranoia, insecurity, excess, carnality, contempt, boredom.

  Martin Amis

  Pride, Envy, Boredom

  Martin Amis (1981). “Other people: a mystery story”, Jonathan Cape

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those that much covet are with gain so fond, For what they have not, that which they possess They scatter and unloose it from their bond, And so, by hoping more, they have but less; Or, gaining more, the profit of excess Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain, That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

  William Shakespeare

  Grief, Gains, Rich

  William Shakespeare, Katherine Duncan-Jones, H. R. Woudhuysen (2007). “Poems: Third Series”, p.250, Cengage Learning EMEA

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• She had never been a pretty crier. She sobbed the way she did everything else - with passion and excess.

  Jodi Picoult

  Passion, Way

  4 Copy quote

• Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Art, Mean, Men

  Leo Tolstoy (2009). “Last Steps: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy”, p.98, Penguin UK

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hardly anyone still reads nowadays. People make use of the writer only in order to work off their own excess energy on him in a perverse manner, in the form of agreement or disagreement.

  Robert Musil

  Agreement, Order, People

  7 Copy quote

• Much has been said about Robert, and more will be added. Young men will adopt his gait. Young girls will wear white dresses and mourn his curls. He will be condemned and adored. His excesses damned or romanticized. In the end, truth will be found in his work, the corporeal body of the artist. It will not fall away. Man cannot judge it. For art sings of God, and ultimately belongs to him.

  Patti Smith

  Girl, Art, Fall

  Patti Smith (2010). “Just Kids”, p.9, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve.

  Iain Banks

  Regret, Nerves, Should

  Iain M. Banks (2012). “The Hydrogen Sonata: A Culture Novel”, p.230, Hachette UK

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind. “At these times, I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.

  J. K. Rowling

  Memories, Focus, Feelings

  7 Copy quote

• Excess of love, did ye say? There was no excess, there was defect. She loved her son too little, not too much. If she had loved him more there'd be no difficulty.

  C. S. Lewis

  Son, Littles, Too Much

  4 Copy quote

• you once said to would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing one self to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind...That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.

  Susan Cain

  Writing, Mean, Night

  4 Copy quote

• Ati sarvatra varjayet: Excess of anything is bad. Some of us are attracted to Good. But the universe tries to maintain balance. So what is good for some may end up being bad for others... Agriculture is good for us humans as it gives us an assured supply of food, but it is bad for the animals that lose their forest and grazing land.

  Amish Tripathi

  Animal, Land, Agriculture

  9 Copy quote

• The Dance can, with the aid of music, rise to the heights of poetry. On the other hand, through an excess of gymnastics it can also degenerate into buffoonery. So-called "difficult" feats can be executed by countless adepts, but the appearance of ease is achieved only by the chosen few.

  August Bournonville

  Dance, Gymnastics, Hands

  August Bournonville (1979). “My theatre life”, Wesleyan

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Education, Independent, Commitment

  Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.29, Vintage

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Happiness, Wisdom, Needs

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays:”, p.3, Sheba Blake Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source