Balance Quotes

Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.

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.

Having kids has been a fantastic thing for me. It's meant that I'm a little more balanced. In my twenties I worked massively, hardly took vacation at all. Now, I, with the help of my wife, I'm always making sure I've got a good balance of how I spend my time.

We call the beautiful the highest, because it appears to us the golden mean, escaping the dowdiness of the good and the heartlessness of the true.

Fame is like caviar, you know - it's good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.

Moderation in all things - including moderation.

For everything you gain, you lose something.

With one more talent one frequently stands with greater instability than with one less, as a table stands better on three legs than on four.

Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.

In a disturbed mind, as in a body in the same state, health can not exist.

What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth.

A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.

Art, in the artist, is proportion, or, a habitual respect to the whole by an eye loving beauty in details. And the wonder and charm of it is the sanity in insanity which it denotes.

Life, in all its uniqueness, would not be life without the negatives and the positives.

One half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other half.

Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; nothing more bondage than too much liberty.

Here's one of the great challenges of life. Being happy with what you have while in pursuit of what you want.

Wo die Liebe herrscht, da gibt es keinen machtwillen, und wo die macht den vorrang hat, da fehlt die Liebe. Das eine ist der Schatten des andern.Translation: Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Accumulation of power is as necessary as its diffusion, or rather more so.

It's best not to get too excited or too depressed by the ups and downs of life.

I do not play games. There is not time for it. When I get through with work, I don't want anything that requires the working of the mind.

And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from.

We must take precautions against being prematurely honed sharp--since at the same time we are being prematurely honed thin.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones.

If I gaze at my beloved she may feel embarrassed and if I do not, she will feel neglected. I can see the stars reflecting in the calm water of her face but if I look away I lose my clarity.

Food is not the problem. It's what we do with food that becomes the problem. That's why we need to learn to keep everything in our lives - especially our eating - in proper balance.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

During the first period of our lives the greatest danger is not to take the risk. When once the risk has been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much. By not risking at first one turns aside and serves trivialities; in the second case, by risking too much, one turns aside to the fantastic and perhaps to presumption.

Seek not happiness too greedily and be not fearful of happiness.

Don't be so concerned with your rights that you forget your manners.

The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.

I like to write without being stoned. I like to have a hit or two and then go punch up the writing. I just see different things and hear different things. But it's nice to be working from the base that I wrote originally and then come to it with a little buzz. I can have a little wine from time to time. I have a hit from time to time, but those are the only things I do.

Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened vocabulary by sense.

To be brave without compassion, generous without moderation, and rule without refraining from being first in the world, are certain deaths.

Now, it is very necessary that we should not flinch from seeing what is vile and debasing. There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck rake; and there are times and places where this service is the most needed of all the services that can be performed. But the man who never does anything else, who never thinks or speaks or writes, save of his feats with the muck rake, speedily becomes, not a help but one of the most potent forces for evil.

You can only hope to get a combination of happy work and a happy life.

Where there is much light, the shadows are deepest.[Ger., Wo viel Licht is, ist starker Schatten.]

Solitude is impractical, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy.

Those who stand on their toes are not steady.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

A light here required a shadow there.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

Only equals make friends, every other relationship is contrived and off balance.

To me, a perfect album talks about the hard stuff and the fun and caring stuff.

Develop the strength of a man, but live as gently as a woman

Don't set out to teach theism from your natural history... You spoil both.

Doing is never enough if you neglect Being.

Humility reminds you that in order to receive value, you must create value in equal measure.

Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing; man or woman, grasping all, loses everything.

We're mostly macrobiotic, but sometimes I take the family out for a pizza.

Education without direction is a one-sided social value. Direct action without education is a meaningless expression of pure energy.

Filling all the way to the brim is not as good as halting in time.

If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their sense. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. Humanity goes. Money making becomes so important that they must work by night as well as by day. Health goes. And so competitive do they become that they will not share their work with others though they have more themselves. What then remains of a human being who has lost sight, sound, and sense of proportion? Only a cripple in a cave.

A good relationship is all about balance and chemistry.

The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites.

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act.

True power is stillness within motion.