Quotations about:
    balance


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You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.

Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey (1935-2001) American novelist, essayist, countercultural figure
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Part 3 (1962)
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Added on 6-Jul-23 | Last updated 6-Jul-23
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The national unity of a free people depends upon a sufficiently even balance of political power to make it impracticable for the administration to be arbitrary and for the opposition to be revolutionary and irreconcilable. Where that balance no longer exists, democracy perishes. For unless all the citizens of a state are forced by circumstances to compromise, unless they feel that they can affect policy but that no one can wholly dominate it, unless by habit and necessity they have to give and take, freedom cannot be maintained.

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
“The Indispensable Opposition,” The Atlantic Monthly (Aug 1939)
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Added on 23-Mar-22 | Last updated 23-Mar-22
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It is advantageous to an author, that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (11-19 Nov 1793), in James Boswell, Journey of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
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Added on 29-Dec-21 | Last updated 29-Dec-21
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We therefore say once more that a strong mind is not one that is merely capable of strong emotions, but one that under stress of the strongest emotions keeps its balance, so that in spite for the storms within the breast, judgment and conviction can act with perfect freedom, like the needle of the compass on a storm-tossed ship.

[Wir sagen es also noch einmal: Ein starkes Gemüth ist nicht ein solches, welches bloss starker Regungen fähig ist, sondern dasjenige, welches bei den stärksten Regungen im Gleichgewicht bleibt, so dass trotz den Stürmen in der Brust der Einsicht und Ueberzeugung wie der Nadel des Kompasses auf dem sturmbewegten Schiff das feinste Spiel gestattet ist.]

Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) Prussian soldier, historian, military theorist
On War [Vom Kriege], Book 1, ch. 3 “On Military Genius [Der Kriegerische Genius],” (1.3) (1832) [tr. Jolles (1943)]
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(Source (German)). Alternate translations:

We, therefore, say once more a strong mind is not one that is merely susceptible of strong excitement, but one which can maintain its serenity under the most powerful excitement; so that, in spite of the storm in the breast, the perception and judgment can act with perfect freedom, like the needle of the compass in the storm-tossed ship.
[tr. Graham (1873)]

We repeat: strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.
[tr. Howard & Paret (1976)]

 
Added on 10-Sep-21 | Last updated 24-Jan-23
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Now and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose here is not to boost your bedroom eloquence or your professional success — although those, too, can be consequences — nor is it to turn you into parlor sophisticates. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible; in a word, the purpose is your balance.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) Russian-American poet, essayist, Nobel laureate, US Poet Laureate [Iosif Aleksandrovič Brodskij]
“Speech at the Stadium,” Commencement Address, University of Michigan (18 Dec 1988)
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Added on 1-Jun-21 | Last updated 1-Jun-21
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The man who will not investigate both sides of a question is dishonest.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
 
Added on 23-Feb-21 | Last updated 23-Feb-21
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The crucial task of age is balance, a veritable tightrope of balance; keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.

Florida Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) American-British playwright, author, psychologist
The Measure of My Days (1968)
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Added on 28-Sep-20 | Last updated 28-Sep-20
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During the greater part of the nineteenth century the significance of the opposition between the two principles of individual rights and social functions was masked by the doctrine of the inevitable harmony between private interests and public good. Competition, it was argued, was an effective substitute for honesty. Today … few now would profess adherence to the compound of economic optimism and moral bankruptcy which led a nineteenth century economist to say: “Greed is held in check by greed, and the desire for gain sets limits to itself.”

R. H. Tawney (1880-1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]
The Acquisitive Century, ch. 3 “The Acquisitive Society” (1920)
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Added on 5-Jan-17 | Last updated 5-Jan-17
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[T.E. Lawrence] is one of those great men for whom one feels intensely sorry because he was nothing but a great man.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Letter to Virginia Ocampo (12 Dec 1946)
 
Added on 4-Nov-15 | Last updated 4-Nov-15
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If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.

T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“Administrative Nihilism” (1871)
 
Added on 6-Oct-15 | Last updated 6-Oct-15
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There is — in world affairs — a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
State of the Union Address (2 Feb 1953)
 
Added on 7-May-15 | Last updated 7-May-15
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Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 5 “Reason in Science,” ch. 8 “Prerational Morality” (1905)
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Added on 19-Mar-14 | Last updated 16-Mar-20
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In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. […] Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)
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Added on 25-May-12 | Last updated 25-Oct-23
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Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 28 “Reunion” (1852)
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Added on 8-Dec-10 | Last updated 17-Dec-13
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A strong mind is one which does not lose its balance even under the most violent excitement.

[Ein starkes Gemüt ist ein solches, welches auch bei den heftigsten Regungen nicht aus dem Gleichgewicht kommt.]

Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) Prussian soldier, historian, military theorist
On War [Vom Kriege], Book 1, ch. 3 “On Military Genius [Der Kriegerische Genius],” (1.3) (1832) [tr. Graham (1873)]
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(Source (German)). Alternate translations:

A stout heart is one which does not lose its balance even under the most violent excitement.
[tr. Jolles (1943)]

A strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions.
[tr. Howard & Paret (1976)]

 
Added on 27-Apr-09 | Last updated 28-Mar-23
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When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Chinese proverb
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 11-Feb-20
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It is only a step from victory to disaster. My experience is that, in a crisis, some detail always decides the issue.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Letter to Tallyrand (7 Oct 1797)
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Napoleon's Letters [tr. J. M. Thompson (1934)]
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 13-Apr-20
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
(Spurious)

First attributed to Aristotle in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (1959). Unfound as such.

Sometimes thought (though I feel it's a bit of a stretch) a misinterpretation of Nicomachean Ethics 1.3.4 (1094b): "For it is the mark of an educated person to search for the same kind of clarity in each topic to the extent that the nature of the matter accepts it."

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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 1-Mar-22
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The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.

Whitehead - The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order - wist.info quote

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
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Based on his Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh (1927-28), on process philosophy.
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 14-Jan-22
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You should not confuse your career with your life.

Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist
“25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #20 (1997)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 20-Oct-14
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