Philip Yancey Quotes

Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.

No sane man can afford to dispense with debilitating pleasures; no ascetic can be considered reliably sane.

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

He who takes his fill of every pleasure ... becomes depraved; while he who avoids all pleasures alike ... becomes insensible.

Water is good, but if you have too much, you drown. So is water bad, or is it good? It's both.

Why is partying and having a good time bad?

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.

The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.

If you are going to do something wrong at least enjoy it.

A man of pleasure is a man of pains.

It's our potential for good stuff I'm most interested in exploring, but that has most meaning when juxtaposed with things that can go wrong.

My success and my misfortunes, the bright and the dark days I have gone through, everything has proved to me that in this world, either physical or moral, good comes out of evil just as well as evil comes out of good.

Extremes are dangerous.

Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end.

A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening.

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated?

The ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads — Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good.