“Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
Rosa: The Death of a Composer
“Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
“In charity there is no excess.”
Francis Bacon book Essays
Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature
Essays (1625)
George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention
Article 9
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
Source: Book, « Ode Marítima »
“There is moderation even in excess.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Book VI, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
“To avoid excess in everything.”
Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Diogenes Laertius
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.