Quotes about Moderation

Abstinence is a path of choosing between profound suffering or abject failure.  Moderation is a more humane choice.

Abstinence is a perpetual cycly of holiness, misery and corruption.  Balance brings more fulfillment and less suffering.

Of all my books, I find only a few indispensible.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Misfortune occurs or can occur to anyone, of any sort of character.  The eudaimonic has more resources to avoid it (being in autonomous control of his appetites and assumptions) and more resources to deal with it if it occurs (being better able to put it in perspective and maintain his own evenness of self-mastery).  Tragedy as a dramatic form is meant to foster the ethos of sophrosyne or moderation, "nothing to excess"; it nurtures a sense of distance from the dominant illusions and delusions that may infect even aristoi.

For governing a country well
there is nothing better than moderation.

The mark of a moderate man
is freedom from his own ideas.
Tolerant like the sky,
all-pervading like sunlight,
firm like a mountain,
supple like a tree in the wind,
he has no destination in view
and makes use of anything
life happens to bring his way.

Nothing is impossible for him.
Because he has let go,
he can care for the people's welfare
as a mother cares for her child.

In the 15th century, Marsilio Ficino put it as simply as possible.  The mind, he said, tends to go off on it's own so that it seems to have no revelance to the physical world.  At the same time, the materialistic life can be so absorbing that we get caught in it and forget about spirituality.  What we need, he said, is soul, in the middle, holding together mind and body, ideas, life, spirituality and the world.

Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's dilemma. It's neither doing nor not doing. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation...is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew.

Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's dilemma. It's neither doing nor not doing. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation...is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

Follow the wisdom provided by nature. Everything in moderation - sunlight, water, nutrients. Too much of a good thing will topple your structure. You can't harvest what you don't sow. So plant your desires, gently nurture them, and they will be rewarded with abundance.

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation is principle is always a vice.

Moderation is best in all things.

Moderation in all things.

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.'

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits; on his manhood; he has gained the facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

A really great man is known by three signs - generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

I saw you with your envoy A consenting adult Technique in moderation But vogue to the cult Me I've got my strangers To exile in the night I guess I'm just addicted To the pain of delight

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.

Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep the fire out of the one, and the frost out of the other.

The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility.

Only actions give life strength; only moderation gives it charm.

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

Nothing in Moderation We all loved him

The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all.

I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.