“Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.”
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.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes
“Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution.”
Source: All the Light We Cannot See
Source: Biographia Literaria (1817), Ch. I
Source: Book, « Ode Marítima »
The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes
Source: The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury
Section II, Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part VII
1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: Nothing is more true than that excess of every kind is followed by reaction; a fact which should be pondered by reformer and reactionary alike. We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far. The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.
Source: Poems from the Pickering Manuscript (c. 1805), Auguries of Innocence, Line 123
Source: Songs of Experience