Golden Mean Quotes

• No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

  Dave Barry

  Inspirational, Balance, Matter

  Dave Barry (1998). “Dave Barry Turns 50”, Crown

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• Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Two, Vices

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• Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.

  Johannes Kepler

  Mean, Math, Jewels

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• Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous mediocrity; rather it is an elaborate balancing act, a feat of intellectual skill demanding constant vigilance. Its aim is a reconciliation of opposites.

  Robertson Davies

  Mean, Acceptance, Skills

  Robertson Davies, Surridge, Jennifer (1997). “Happy Alchemy: Writings on the Theatre and Other Lively Arts”, M&S

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• They are sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Funny Inspirational, Loss, Venice

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 1, sc. 2, l. [5]

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• I soon found out you can't change the world. The best you can do is to learn to live with it.

  Henry Miller

  Change, Learning, Balance

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• To character and success, two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together... humble dependence on God and manly reliance on self.

  William Wordsworth

  Humble, Character, Two

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• The most pleasant and useful persons are those who leave some of the problems of the universe for God to worry about.

  Don Marquis

  Worry, Balance, Problem

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• He who makes a paradise of his bread makes a hell of his hunger.

  Antonio Porchia

  Balance, Paradise, Bread

  "Voices". Book by Antonio Porchia, 1943.

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• He, that holds fast the golden mean,
  And lives contentedly between
  The little and the great,
  Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
  Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door,
  Imbitt'ring all his state.

  Horace

  Mean, Men, Doors

  Horace, D. S. Carne-Ross, Kenneth Haynes (1996). “Horace in English”, Penguin Group USA

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• Keep the golden mean between saying too much and too little.

  Publilius Syrus

  Life, Mean, Saying Too Much

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• Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

  Horace

  Mean, Envy, Golden

  "Odes". Book by Horace, Book II, ode x, line 5, c. 23 BC, 13 BC.

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• 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.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Beautiful, Mean

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.290

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• Why is humanity so excessive in the way it does things? The golden mean seems out of fashion.

  Rose Macaulay

  Fashion, Mean, Humanity

  Rose Macaulay, Constance Babington Smith (2011). “Letters to a Friend”, p.245, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Who loves the golden mean is safe from the poverty of a tenement, is free from the envy of a palace.
  [Lat., Auream quisquis mediocritatem deligit tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda sobrius aula.]

  Horace

  Mean, Envy, Tutus

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• There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love.

  John Calvin

  Mean, Two, Golden

  "Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life". Book by John Calvin, 1550.

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• There is a proper measure in all things, certain limits beyond which and short of which right is not to be found. Who so cultivates the golden mean avoids the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

  Horace

  Mean, Envy, Golden

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• The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet's year is completed, it will be found to be central.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Years, One Day

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.930, Delphi Classics

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• Greatness, with private men Esteem'd a blessing, is to me a curse; And we, whom, for our high births, they conclude The happy freemen, are the only slaves. Happy the golden mean!

  Philip Massinger

  Mean, Blessing, Greatness

  1627 The Great Duke of Florence, act1, sc.1.

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• If there is to be no satisfaction in pleasure, none in wisdom, none in ambition, none in the golden mean, what then? Ah, where then? In duty. In doing right because it is right.

  Lyman Abbott

  Ambition, Mean, Golden

  Lyman Abbott (1900). “Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott”

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• The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year ninety-three...And scoundrells, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Live Life, Mean, Years

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