William E. Vaughan Quotes

I'll never feel comfortable taking a strong drink, and I'll never feel easy smoking a cigarette. I just don't think those things are right for me.

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.

As disciplined as I am, I'm also a huge hedonist.

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

Happiness is impossible, and even inconceivable, to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, or fear. To be happy, you must be reasonable, or you must be tamed. You must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you. To be happy, you must be wise.

I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other; besides, I like to enjoy my life at all sides and ends, which cannot be done by one that suffers himself to be the slave of a single propensity.

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it.

Let a man neither give himself over to pleasures ... nor yet let him give himself over to self-mortification ... To the exclusion of both these extremes, the Truth-Finder has discovered a middle course.

I've always had a very extreme personality, which gets me into major trouble, I'm always all or nothing, and I don't know the world "balance." I'm desperately trying to learn it because I think as you get older it becomes very important.

Learning when 'enough is enough' is the discipline of a lifetime.

The sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, And its best flavour temperance gives to joy.

I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them.

Moderately wise each one should be, Not overwise, for a wise man's heart Is seldom glad (Norse Wisdom)

Wisdom consists in knowing what not to want as well as what to want.

Take what you do seriously, but yourself lightly

He that would have the perfection of pleasure must be moderate in the use of it.

A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents.

Pleasures are enhanced by a moderate indulgence.

I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man: wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morningwith a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid; but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.

If there is no enjoyment in this world, there would not be so much suffering. As suffering really is the frustration of our attempts to enjoy.

Pleasure is like a cordial - a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.

Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy.