Pierre Beaumarchais Quotes

Our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything without having too much.

I love having wine with my meals. And if I splurge, I'm going to splurge big, because if I deny my cravings, it just ends up backfiring on me, you know?

Many a man gets weary of clamping down on his rough impulses, which if given occasional release would encourage the living of life with salt in it, in place of dust.

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

Even at my peak, I never went too over the top.

I realized, 'Yo, I can't do anything in moderation. I don't know how.'

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind.

One declaims endlessly against the passions; one imputes all of man's suffering to them. One forgets that they are also the source of all his pleasures.

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

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

I can't do anything in moderation.

Lust is an appetite that needs to be regulated.

It needs courage to throw oneself forward, but it needs no less to hold oneself back.

The cultivation of the ego must recognize bounds in the lives of states as in private life, in order not to be reduced to absurdity.

What youth considers liberation, maturity considers tasteless excess.

Economic man and sensual man are not suppressible.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to define the limit of our reasonable desires in respect of possessions.

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

It's unrealistic not to be able to indulge.

Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.

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

In this world, man has two significant possessions: intelligence and emotion. These two possessions govern our day-to-day life. But very often we see that emotion (ego) gets the upper hand in our life. We know that even if someone is extremely intelligent, when his emotion comes to the fore it will devour him. He is compelled to do what his emotion asks him to do.

Without asceticism, self-indulgence would be insignificant.

You don’t know the meaning of moderation, do you, my darling? A happy medium is something I wonder if you’ll ever learn.