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Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

classic quote by Mary Wollstonecraft
Added by Lucian Velea
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Whenever a situation develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite.

classic quote by Frank Capra
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that eve

classic quote by Galileo Galilei
Added by Lucian Velea
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The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off - we do not have to stand for this.

quote by Bono
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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When I want to dissect a modern problem, I actually find many similar problems in ancient days. In fact, without the many outer layers of so-called modern civilization, the themes I find in old stories are more clear-cut. They are so visible and extreme. I am not saying that all historical eras are similar to today. But by using a comprehensible social structure such as we had in the past, it is much easier for me to convey or re-create modern situations.

Kaneto Shindo in Voices from the Japanese Cinema (1975)
Added by Simona Enache
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I consider melodrama to be a story or situation created artificially, with the sole purpose of attracting an audience’s attention. This is contrived very conveniently. If you want to depict a truthful drama, it is permissible to use any means available. Here I mean any possible dramatic situation, including the extreme examples you mentioned. However, this is the area in which true artists are separated from professional craftsmen. If the director, the “creator,” intends to produce a truly artistic work, he must carefully choose the most suitable dramatic situation from the many possibilities. This selection is in the director’s hands entirely, and the choice determines how fine an artist he is

Kaneto Shindo in Voices from the Japanese Cinema (1975)
Added by Simona Enache
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I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.

Bram Stoker in Dracula (1897)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Canto the Fourth

I
Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.

II
But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man, -- and, as we would hope, -- perhaps the devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this -- the blood flows on too fast;
But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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If a person offend you and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures. Simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick.

Mark Twain in Advice to Youth (1882)
Added by Lucian Velea
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To the biologist the problem of socialism appears largely as a problem of size. The extreme socialists desire to run every nation as a single business concern. I do not suppose that Henry Ford would find much difficulty in running Andorra or Luxembourg on a socialistic basis. He has already more men on his pay-roll than their population. It is conceivable that a syndicate of Fords, if we could find them, would make Belgium Ltd. or Denmark Inc. pay their way. But while nationalization of certain industries is an obvious possibility in the largest of states, I find it no easier to picture a completely socialized British Empire or United States than an elephant turning somersaults or a hippopotamus jumping a hedge.

J.B.S. Haldane in Possible Worlds
Added by Lucian Velea
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