Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

Rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness; benevolence indulged beyond measure sinks into weakness.

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one’s beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.

Pride and excess bring disaster for man.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.