“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”
Source: Kodokan Judo (1882), p. 23
Context: Another tenet of randori is to apply just the right amount of force — never too much, never too little. All of us know of people who have failed to accomplish what they set out to do because of not properly gauging the amount of effort required. At one extreme, they fall short of the mark; at the other, they do not know when to stop.
“I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.”
Nova Interview
Balla is quoted here by his former pupil Umberto Boccioni, in his letter to his Futurist art-friend (and also former pupil of Balla) Gino Severini, Jan. 1913; as quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 248
Balla was referring to his two former pupils
“Our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything without having too much.”
On Dr. Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), Bishop of Salisbury : as cited in The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors: 1639-1729 , ed. Charles Wells Moulton, H. Malkan (1910) p. 591.
