Excess

Famous quotes containing the word excess:

    The Declaration [of Independence] was not a protest against government, but against the excess of government. It prescribed the proper role of government, to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this alone. So government is not a necessary evil but a necessary good.
    Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)

    Solomon’s ... excess became an insult upon the privileges of mankind; for by the same plan of luxury, which made it necessary to have forty thousand stalls of horses,—he had unfortunately miscalculated his other wants, and so had seven hundred wives....
    Wise—deluded man!
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)

    Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds—a sacrifice to the vanity of ageing adolescents.... In 1953, excess is always a comfort, and sometimes a career.
    Albert Camus (1913–1960)