We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance.

— Arendt, Hannah

Riches are for spending.

— Bacon, Francis

Let's not quibble! I'm the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.

— Bankhead, Tallulah

We are no longer in a state of growth; we are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence. The boil is growing out of control, recklessly at cross purposes with itself, its impacts multiplying as the causes disintegrate.

— Baudrillard, Jean

The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

— Blake, William

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

— Butler, Samuel

To go too far is as bad as to fall short.

— Confucius

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

— Maugham, W. Somerset

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

— Plato

Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life -- its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness -- conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.

— Sontag, Susan

I hold this as a rule of life: Too much of anything is bad.

— Terence

Nothing in excess.

— Unknown, Source

Americans are overreaching; overreaching is the most admirable and most American of the many American excesses.

— Will, George F.