“Dignity is like morality,” Mirabilis barked. “Too much is as bad as too little.”

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 20, “The Otherwhere Marble” (p. 274)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Dignity is like morality,” Mirabilis barked. “Too much is as bad as too little." by M. K. Hobson?
M. K. Hobson photo
M. K. Hobson 47
American writer 1969

Related quotes

Samuel Butler photo

“God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more venial with him than a little too good.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Vice and Virtue, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

Dolly Parton photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism
Context: ... as the great Unitarian preacher Channing pointed out, that in France and Spain there are multitudes who have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute atheism, because "the fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to beget skepticism in those who receive them without reflection. None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much." Here is, indeed, the terrible danger of believing too much. But no! the terrible danger comes from another quarter — from seeking to believe with the reason and not with the life.

Steven Pinker photo

“The world has far too much morality.”

Steven Pinker (1954) psychologist, linguist, author

p 474
The Better Angels of our Nature (2011)

Pat Cadigan photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“I like you, but not too much. I don’t want to like anybody too much.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Jean Piaget photo

“It is perhaps in this domain that one realized most how keenly how immoral it can be to believe too much in morality, and how much more precious is a little humanity than all the rules in the world.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism <!-- p. 185 -->
Context: The majority of parents are poor psychologists and give their children the most questionable moral trainings. It is perhaps in this domain that one realized most how keenly how immoral it can be to believe too much in morality, and how much more precious is a little humanity than all the rules in the world. Thus the adult leads the child to the notion of objective responsibility, and consolidates in consequence a tendency that is already natural to the spontaneous mentality of little children.

James Patterson photo
Agatha Christie photo

Related topics