145 Quotes About Excess



  • Author Anais Nin
  • Quote

    Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Annie Dillard
  • Quote

    I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives, Henle's loops and all. Every glistening egg is a memento mori.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You don't mind the times ... You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don't think foolishly.

  • Tags
  • Share