Excess

We should know that too much of anything, even a good thing, may prove to be our undoing . . . [We] need to set definite boundaries on our appetites.
~ William John Bennett, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories (1993).

Dip him in the river who loves water.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

Enough! or Too much.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul, less than All cannot satisfy Man.
~ William Blake, There Is No Natural Religion (1788).

The principle inherent in the clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr.

Fanaticism the false fire of an overheated mind.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Conversation

Sometimes it can happen that you see everything in terms of music. It's like a fixation. You can't help it. I get that way every time I'm trying to work something out. But it's bad if you can't pull out of it. Nothing should be that dominating. If it is, it is perverted.
~ Bill Evans, Down Beat Magazine (1960).

A man who overindulges lives in a dream. He becomes conceited. He thinks the whole world revolves around him; and it usually does.
~ W.C. Fields, Quoted in A Treasury of Humorous Quotations (1969).

Fanaticism is the child of false zeal and of superstition, the father of intolerance and of persecution.
~ John William Fletcher

Since the creation of the world there has been no tyrant like Intemperance, and no slaves so cruelly treated as his.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Life. Vol. I

And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.
~ William Gibson, Count Zero (March 1986).

An excess of modesty is in fact an excess of pride, and more hurtful to the individual, and less advantageous to society, than the grossest and most unblushing vanity.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On The Qualifications Necessary For Success

However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1792). Chapter 8

I don't know why I go to extremes.
~ Billy Joel

Go to no extremes in thought or act hereupon.
~ William Q. Judge, A Letter from W.Q. Judge to Dr. A. Keightley (4 January 1895).

If some countries have too much history, we have too much geography.
~ William Lyon Mackenzie King, Speech, Canadian House of Commons (18 June 1936).

I have not been afraid of excess; excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938). Chapter 15

It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
~ William of Ockham

All Excess is ill: But Drunkenness is of the worst Sort. It spoils Health, dismounts the Mind, and unmans Men: It reveals Secrets, is Quarrelsome, Lascivious, Impudent, Dangerous and Mad.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693).

It is the overtakers who keep the undertakers busy.
~ William Ewart Pitts, The Observer (22 December 1963). Sayings of the Week

Dig a trench through a landfill and you will see layers of phone books like geographical strata or layers of cake. . . . During a recent landfill dig in Phoenix, I found newspapers dating from 1952 that looked so fresh you might read one over breakfast.
~ William Rathje, The Economist (8 September 1990).

A fanatic is always the fellow on the opposite side.
~ Will Rogers, Quoted in Criswell Freeman The Wisdom of the West (1997).

All movements go too far.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Avoid extremes: be moderate
In saving and in spending;
An equable and easy gait
Will win an easy ending. . . .
~ Robert William Service, Moderation

An overflow of good converts to bad.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II

Fierce extremes
In their continuances will not feed themselves.
~ William Shakespeare, King John

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act I, scene i

It out-herods Herod.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene ii

One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne'er so fatal.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello

[S]uperfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act I, scene ii

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
~ William Shakespeare, King John. Act IV, scene ii

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV. Act III, scene ii

What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act I, scene i

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 135

You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

People who try to do either all the giving or all the taking are equally likely to be unhappy and therefore unbalanced and therefore unsuccessful at whatever it is they want to do.
~ Amabel Williams-Ellis, The Art Of Being A Woman (1951)

All fanaticism is a strategy to prevent doubt from becoming conscious.
~ H.A. Williams, The True Wilderness (1965).

[C]eremony and great professing renders friendship as much suspected as it does religion.
~ William Wycherley, The Plain Dealer (1676). Act I, scene i

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