Quotes About Balance

Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality.

Cheerfulness is as natural to the heart of a man in strong health, as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual gloom, there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe labor, or erring habits of life.

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.

Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.

The point is this: when you make even swaps, concentrate not on the importance of the objectives but on the importance of the amounts in question.

As its name implies, an even swap increases the value of an alternative in terms of one objective while decreasing its value by an equivalent amount in terms of another objective. In essence, the even swap method is a form of bartering—it forces you to think about the value of one objective in terms of another.

Decisions with multiple objectives cannot be resolved by focusing on any one objective.

there are as many nuts on the left as there are on the right, and in the long run, the lefties are probably more dangerous.

The country would be far better if the population were half as interested in keeping their minds in as good condition as they tried to keep their bodies.

There's a difference between the fact that the universe is inherently unfair on a cosmic level, and the fact that life is unfair because people are actively making it so.

Emotions make excellent servants, but tyrannical masters.

Once a response becomes a habit, you stop learning. Theoretically, you could act differently, but in practice you do not. Habits are extremely useful, they streamline the parts of our lives we do not want to think about...But there is an art to deciding what parts of your life you want to turn over to habit, and what parts of your life you want to continue to learn from and have choice about. This is a key question of balance.

Live as you want and you shall be at peace.

The problem with artists, Jahanara, is that we often forget the more common things in life. Our heads are so high in the clouds that we don't see the world beneath.

Nature is not tailored to man. It exists for itself.

A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, and sick.

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

It takes a loose rein to keep a marriage tight.

I'm convinced that, unfortunately, the general direction of rule changes for a long time has been to carve out greater space for the individual athlete while curbing the impact of team play. This narrows the opportunities to participate. In general, only "cookie cutter" athletic prodigies get serious looks. In my opinion, tinkering with the game to distort the natural balance between team and individual play is counterproductive.

Whereas in the past a worker lived in his or her work, he or she now works in order to live outside his or her work.

I believe in spectacles, but I think eyes necessary too.

But the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they freely concede to every one else; regarding command of any kind as an exceptional necessity, and in all cases a temporary one; and preferring, whenever possible, the society of those with whom leading and following can be alternate and reciprocal.