Famous quotes containing the words excess and/or approaches:
“For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure—tangible material prosperity in this world—is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and not pure science, or are performing faithful but quite subordinate labors in particular departments. They make no steady and systematic approaches to the central fact.... There is wanting constant and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct and discipline it. But, above all, there is wanting genius.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)