"There is moderation even in excess"
About this Quote
The aphorism yokes two seeming opposites to propose a subtler art of living. Excess, it suggests, need not be a blind surrender to appetite; it can be curated, shaped, and proportioned. A celebration can be lavish without tipping into vulgarity. A work of art can push form and color to the brink and still cohere. A life can welcome intensity and daring while guarding judgment and self-command. The key is measure, not meagerness: knowing how far to go, and how to return.
Benjamin Disraeli embodied that balance. A novelist turned statesman, he cultivated flamboyance and theatrical wit while practicing shrewd, incremental politics. As the driving force behind the 1867 Reform Act, he widened the franchise boldly but not recklessly, threading reform through the fabric of existing institutions. He relished imperial pageantry, yet his moves were calculated, as with the purchase of Suez Canal shares that strengthened British influence without open conflict. The dandy and the pragmatist were not at war in him; they were coordinated. Spectacle was not a substitute for policy but a means to organize loyalty and purpose.
The line also echoes a classical intuition, the sense that proportion governs even the grandest gestures. To say there is moderation in excess is to treat intensity as a skill rather than a spasm. Pleasure that is all climax grows dull; rhetoric that is all hyperbole exhausts; ambition that refuses limits consumes itself. The finest symphony allows itself thunder yet resolves; the best feast balances richness with acidity; the wisest schedule alternates sprints with recovery. So with character and power: a leader can harness passion and pageant to move a nation, provided they are bounded by principle and an ear for timing.
Not a counsel of tepidness, the line is a discipline of mastery. It invites the generous life, lived with taste and control, where even extremes are instruments rather than addictions.
Benjamin Disraeli embodied that balance. A novelist turned statesman, he cultivated flamboyance and theatrical wit while practicing shrewd, incremental politics. As the driving force behind the 1867 Reform Act, he widened the franchise boldly but not recklessly, threading reform through the fabric of existing institutions. He relished imperial pageantry, yet his moves were calculated, as with the purchase of Suez Canal shares that strengthened British influence without open conflict. The dandy and the pragmatist were not at war in him; they were coordinated. Spectacle was not a substitute for policy but a means to organize loyalty and purpose.
The line also echoes a classical intuition, the sense that proportion governs even the grandest gestures. To say there is moderation in excess is to treat intensity as a skill rather than a spasm. Pleasure that is all climax grows dull; rhetoric that is all hyperbole exhausts; ambition that refuses limits consumes itself. The finest symphony allows itself thunder yet resolves; the best feast balances richness with acidity; the wisest schedule alternates sprints with recovery. So with character and power: a leader can harness passion and pageant to move a nation, provided they are bounded by principle and an ear for timing.
Not a counsel of tepidness, the line is a discipline of mastery. It invites the generous life, lived with taste and control, where even extremes are instruments rather than addictions.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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