115 Quotes About Moderation

Moderation is all very well, but only in moderation.

Pile up gold, heap up silver, build covered walks, fill your house with slaves and the town with debtors, unless you lay to rest the passions of the soul, and put a curb on your insatiable desires, and rid yourself of fear and anxiety, you are but pouring out wine for a man in a fever, and giving honey to a man who is bilious, and laying out a sumptuous banquet for people who are suffering from dysentery,

To rouse the countra frae the caul' morality o' a deid moderation.

Many societies that fell to historical tyranny have lacked moderates. Without people in the middle to challenge the most fringe plans of right or left, an entire society can be prone to veer too far in one direction and over an ideological cliff.

Too much too little is bad. Too much desperation kills destiny.

To know what one must forbid oneself.

Letting confusion get in the way of changing your diet and lifestyle will deter you from facing the reality of how hard it is to give up sugar. If you’ll forgive the expression, I am not going to sugar-coat it: sugary drinks, donuts, cake, cookies and candy are out. And there’s no “okay in moderation.” What does that mean: once a week, once on the weekend, only on holidays? It probably doesn't mean Friday after work until Monday morning!

When very complicated situations collapse into simple 'us versus them' problems, then certainty, hate, and escalatory spirals proliferate and become a driving force for perpetual conflict.

Moderation may be particularly relevant in a post-Cold War age such as ours because it enables us to deal with the antinomies and tensions at the heart of our contemporary societies and allows us to defend the pluralism of ideas, principles, and interests against its enemies. ... Moderation should be regarded as an eclectic virtue transcending the conventional categories of our political vocabulary.