Quotes About Balance

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

The wise man through an excess of wisdom is made a fool.

Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

The ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are the victims of these details, and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment.

We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.

Nature hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others

For every grain of wit, there is a grain of folly. For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something

Love is as much its demand as perception. Indeed, neither can be perfect without the other.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself

laws of moral nature answer to those of matter as face

The whole of what we know is a system of compensation. Every defect in one manner is made up in another. Every suffering is rewarded; every sacrifice is made up; every debt is paid.

Solitude is a sublime mistress but an intolerable wife

And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem.

The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person.

And evermore in the world is this marvellous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.

Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,—the sweet, without the other side,—the bitter.

For everything you have missed you have gained something else, and for everything you gain you lose something else.

If Love his moment overstay, Hatred's swift repulsions play.

Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles.

Logic is the procession or proportionate unfolding of the intuition;

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.