F Scott Fitzgerald - Voltaire - Cicero - Temple of Apollo at Delphi - Susan Sontag - William Shakespeare & The Tempest 2010 - Jean Baudrillard - William Blake - Somerset W Maughan - Richard Dawkins - Fear and Loathing in Las Veas 1998 - Friedrich Nietzsche - Abigail Thomas - Jack Kerouac - Oscar Wilde - Lost Horizon 1937 - John Selden - Secret World of Las Vegas TV - The Booze, Bets & Sex that Built the World TV - Don DeLillo -
It was an age of miracles. It was an age of art. It was an age of excess. And it was an age of satire. We were the most powerful nation. Who could tell us any longer what was fashionable and what was fun? It was a whole race going hedonistic. Deciding on pleasure. The jazz age now raced along under its own power served by great filling stations full of money. F Scott Fitzgerald, Echoes of the Jazz Age
Somebody had blundered. And the most expensive orgy in history was over. Now once more the belt is tight. And we summoned the proper expression of horror as we looked back on our wasted youth. Sometimes though there is a ghostly rumble among the drums. Enigmatic whispers in the trombones. That swings me back into the early twenties. When we drank wood alcohol and every day in every way grew better and better. And there was an abortive shortening of the skirts. And people you didn’t want to know said, Yes, we have no bananas. And it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young men. Because we will never quite so intently about our surroundings any more. ibid.
Though the Jazz Age continued it became less and less an affair of youth. The sequel was like a children’s party taken over by the elders. ibid.
Use, do not abuse ... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. Voltaire
Never go to excess but let moderation be your guide. Cicero
Nothing in excess. Temple of Apollo at Delphi inscription
Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life – its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness – conjoin to dull our sensory faculties. Susan Sontag
Can one desire too much of a good thing? As You Like It, Globe Theatre, Sky Arts 2012, Rosalind
To gild the refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. William Shakespeare, King John IV ii 11
More than a little is by much too much. The Tempest 2010 starring Helen Mirren & Felicity Jones & Chris Cooper & Russell Brand & Reeve Carney & Tom Conti & Alan Cumming & Dimon Hounsou & Alfred Molina & Ben Whishaw et al, director Julie Taymor, King
We are no longer in a state of growth; we are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence. The boil is growing out of control, recklessly at cross purposes with itself, its impacts multiplying as the causes disintegrate. Jean Baudrillard
Let’s not quibble! I’m the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right. Tallulah Bankhead
The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. Somerset W Maugham
The word ‘excess’ has no meaning for a male. Richard Dawkins
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 1998 starring Johnny Depp & Benicio del Toro & Tobey Maguire & Ellen Barkin & Gary Busey & Christina Ricci & Mark Harmon & Cameron Diaz & Katherine Helmond & Michael Jeter & Penn Jillette et al, director Terry Gilliam
The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness. Friedrich Nietzsche
There are those people who can eat one piece of chocolate, one piece of cake, drink one glass of wine. There are even people who smoke one or two cigarettes a week. And then there are people for whom one of anything is not even an option. Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir
In one sense the drinker learns wisdom, in the words of Goethe or Blake or whichever it was, ‘The pathway to wisdom lies through excess.’ Jack Kerouac, Big Sur
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. Oscar Wilde
Our general belief was in moderation. We preach the virtue of avoiding excesses of every kind. Lost Horizon 1937 ***** starring Ronald Colman & Jane Wyatt & H B Warner & Sam Jaffe & John Howard & Edward Everett Horton & Thomas Mitchell & Margo & Isabel Jewell & David Clyde & David Torrence et al, director Frank Capra, Chang
’Tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess. John Selden, Table Talk, 1689
It’s the world’s entertainment capital. An oasis of excess in the Nevada desert attracting forty million people each year. Where high-rollers gamble, drink, visitors stuff themselves and celebrate non-stop. Here, nothing’s off limits and anything can be bought. It’s the ultimate party destination. Secret World of Las Vegas 24/7 I, Channel 5 2019
By the early 20th century the battle between the entrepreneurs of excess and the forces of abstinence had reached fever pitch. The Booze, Bets and Sex that Built the World s1e3: Sin Cities, History 2022
Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean, true fame. A Devouring neon. Long journeys across grey space. Danger. The edge of every void. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions. Even if half-mad, he is absorbed into the public’s total madness. Even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public’s contempt for survival. Don DeLillo, Great James Street, cited Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, Sky Arts 2024