Francois Fenelon Quotes

Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind.

Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.

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

Be not righteous overmuch.

In every extreme there is vice and not virtue.

… vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in the mean, and moderation is virtue. Every abiding place outside the bounds of moderation is only exile to the wise man.

Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Authenticity is a virtue. But just as you can have too little authenticity, you can also have too much.

So many things--nay every real thing--is good if only it will be humble and ordinate.

Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind; censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

Just as lavishness leads easily to presumption, so does frugality to meanness. But meanness is a far less serious fault than presumption.

In my opinion, moderation is a vastly overrated virtue, particularly when applied to work

I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.

Vices are simply overworked virtues.

There is moderation in everything.

It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.

Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

The most dangerous flaws are those which are good in moderation," she said. "Evil is easy to fight. Lack of wisdom… that is very hard indeed.

So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; Sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency.

Do nondoing, strive for non-stiving, savor the flavourless, make much of little, repay enmity with virture; plan for difficulty when it is still easy, do the great while it is still small.

It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.

Purity without balance is its own corruption.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.