Thread: O.Wilde (quote)

"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothings suceeds like excess." (O.Wilde)

Apart from Wilde's rephrasing of the proverb,

Do you think excess means excess in life like food, drinking, entertainments, etc.
Or excess in the meaning of 'breaking code of behaviour', i.e. only people who break rules and are immoral can succeed.
?

That's a good question. The more I think about it the less it seems to mean. I know he doesn't mean food and whatnot. For one thing, when truly thinking about what both sentences say and mean, they don't really mean anything together. I see why you ask. He does mean the sort of "breaking code of behaviour", even though one can't really have an "excess of effort", you can have an excess of certain foods or entertainment, but the idea of an excess of a behaviour doesn't really work. That's a very linguistically strange quote.