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Moderation Quotes

Browse 557 quotes about Moderation.

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Moderation Quotes

“One of the best means of preserving the balance of political community and promoting the necessary social and political changes is by keeping the dialogue open with all the political actors who accept the basic rules of the game and are committed to preserving the basic values of the society. This ... explains why many of the thinkers studied in this book, from [Raymond] Aron and [Norberto] Bobbio to [Adam] Michnik, successfully practiced the art of dialogue across the aisle and refused to see the world in black-and-white contrasts. If they adopted the role of committed or engaged spectators, they also maintained a certain degree of detachment and skepticism in their attitudes and political judgments. Their invitation to dialogue and their willingness to speak to their critics illustrated their courage and determination not to look for 'safe spaces' and lukewarm solutions. Instead, they saw themselves as mediators whose duty was to open a line of communication with their opponents who disagreed with them. The dialogue they staged was at times difficult and frustrating, and their belief in the (real or symbolic) power of discussion was an open act of defiance against the crusading spirit of their age, marked by political sectarianism, monologue, and ideological intransigence. Aron and the other moderates studied here were convinced that we can improve ourselves not so much by seeking a fictitious harmony with our critics as by engaging in an open debate with them, as long as we all remain committed to civility and rational critique. In this regard, they all acted as true disciples of Montaigne, who once acknowledged that 'no premise shocks me, no belief hurts me, no matter how opposite they may be. ... When I am contradicted it arouses my attention not my wrath.' This is exactly how Aron and other moderates felt and behaved. They were open to being challenged and did not shy away from correcting others when they thought fit. Yet, in so doing, they did not simply seek to refute or defeat their opponents' arguments, being aware that the truth is almost never the monopoly of a single camp or group.”

TruthCourageHumilityDialogueOpennessModestyModerationAuthoritarianism
Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
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“Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Don’t stop it. Is it not yet come? Don’t stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. Do this with regard to children, to a wife, to public posts, to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy partner of the feasts of the gods. And if you don’t even take the things which are set before you, but are able even to reject them, then you will not only be a partner at the feasts of the gods, but also of their empire.”

DesireGreedModerationStoicism
Book:The Enchiridion & Discourses of Epictetus
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“Joy of Conscience (The Sonnet) Conscience brings joy, Conscience brings relief. It's a different kind of joy, sanctified by bouts of grief. Conscience causes content, unsurpassed by material excitement. Only through conscientious moderation, shall we overcome shallow derangement. Materials are needed for sustenance, beyond that point it becomes poison. Cluttering the mind with toxic waste, it separates the human from human. Conscience brings joy, untainted by shallow glee. Surrounded by ritual compromise, conscience alone can set us free.”

FreedomHonestyConscienceReliefMaterialismModerationPursuit Of HappinessMaterialisticRight And WrongMindful Living
Book:Abigitano: El Divino Refugiado
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“Many people are mad at the escapades of billionaires in space, but the fact of the matter is, had they been invited to go with the billionaires themselves, most of them would be thrilled to their bones, for they are not really mad at the billionaires, they are mad because they can't afford such fancy travel. You see, they are the same people who save up their hard-earned money so they could have a relaxing or thrilling vacation somewhere, even though their version of vacation turns bleak in front of the glorious space vacations of the super-rich. So to those who pompously ask the question, "should people travel to space for fun", I ask, “should you have a vacation on an island for fun - should you have dinner at a fancy restaurant for fun – when countless souls are suffering from the lack of the very essentials of life?” It's all about status. A billionaire's idea of vacation is in space, whereas a regular person's idea of a vacation is on some island or in another continent. And if the billionaires are abusing resources for personal enjoyment, so are these regular people. You have no right to demand moral accountability from billionaires, if you yourself don't mind engaging in your everyday luxuries – for your luxuries may seem dim compared to those of the super-rich, but still the resources you spend on them could feed and clothe at least ten families in developing parts of the world for a year. The very existence of billionaires is a sign of economic disparities, but they are not the sole cause of those disparities. Every individual engaging in luxury beyond necessity is as much responsible for the economic disparities in society as the super wealthy. So till you learn to distinguish between necessity and luxury and thereafter abolish all trace of luxury from your own life, you are the problem yourself, as much as the greedy capitalists and politicians.”

WealthLuxuryVacationModerationBillionaireSpace ExplorationMaterialisticEconomic DisparitySpace TourismEconomic Disparities
Book:Gente Mente Adelante: Prejudice Conquered is World Conquered
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“Everything must be structured around the center - from the core of the being of the person and not just one aspect of him, from his heart, as the vernacular names the source of the individual - and not from his head. The excessive stretching of the consciousness of responsibility - for which the excessive expansion of the belief in reason, in the social and political effectiveness of conviction, is to blame - already has been broken asunder in the world ... For the most serious human evil is lack of moderation.”

EvilMoralityGuiltExcessModerationExtremismPerfectionismPuritanism
Book:Grenzen der Gemeinschaft
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“Handcrafted Humanity Sonnet 19 It takes awareness to be human, To be animal it takes none. It takes moderation to be human, To be animal it takes none. It takes regulation to be human, To be animal it takes none. It takes restraint to be human, To be animal it takes none. It takes gentleness to be human, To be animal it takes none. It takes humility to be human, To be animal it takes none. Everything civilized starts with awareness. But if you like being animal let go off all restraint.”

HumanityAwarenessHuman NatureHumilityMindfulnessSelf ControlModerationHumanist PoetrySelf RegulationSelf Restraint
Book:Handcrafted Humanity: 100 Sonnets For A Blunderful World
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“The person of dialogue attempts to transform the enemy into an opponent and the opponent into a partner. An opponent is for him one who presents challenge, who wants and asks to be understood. The person of dialogue believes that dialogue is the only way to be understood by others. So he makes an effort to look at the world through his opponent's viewpoint, to 'change hats with him' and to 'step into his shoes.' ... He does not shy away from defending his own arguments and is not afraid of the truth, but, invariably, he puts respect for human dignity first. ... Each partner accept that the dignity of the other is of immensurable value. This presupposes the ability to strike a compromise, whenever possible, the readiness to admit that one is not is possession of the sole and complete [truth], and the willingness to accept somebody else's reasoning and to change one's own attitudes. (Quoted from Adam Michnik, In Search of Lost Meaning.)”

HumilityHumanismDialogueCompromiseModeration
Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
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“With regard to religious belief, [Adam] Michnik admitted that 'only those forms of religious belief that are "anti-values," that lead to fanaticism and intolerance, are objectionable' and should therefore be opposed. 'I would nevertheless be afraid to live in a world without conservative institutions and values,' he confessed, speaking like a true moderate. 'A world devoid of tradition would be nonsensical and anarchic. The human world should be constructed from a permanent conflict between conservatism and contestation; if either is absent from a society, pluralism is destroyed.”

ReligionFaithHumanismDialogueModerationConservatismPluralism
Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
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“As [Isaiah] Berlin wrote to George Kennan in 1951, 'What we violently reject is ... the very idea that there are circumstances in which one has a right to get at, and shape the characters and souls of other men for purposes which these men, if they realized what we were doing, might reject.' The respect for individual liberty goes hand in hand with the recognition of human dignity as a fundamental principle and is incompatible with treating human beings as sheer material to be conditioned and shaped at will.”

LibertyHumanismModerationMarxismTotalitarianismAuthoritarianismPolitical TheoryUtopianism
Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
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“[Obituary of atheist philosopher Richard Robinson] An Atheist's Values is one of the best short accounts of liberalism (a term Robinson accepted) and humanism (a term he ignored) produced during the present century, all the more powerful for its lucidity and moderation, its wit and wisdom. It may now seem old-fashioned, but during those confused alarms of struggle and fight between the ignorant armies of left and right, thousands of readers must have taken inspiration from Richard Robinson's rational defence of rationalism. It is a pity that it is now out of print, when there is still so much nonsense and so little sense in the world.”

WorldReasonWisdomStruggleAtheismAtheistHumanismWitIgnorantLiberalismNonsenseModerationSenseRationalismObituaryAn Atheist S ValuesRichard Robinson
Author:Nicolas Walter
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“As it is with humanity’s ascent, so it is with its decline. Declining peoples first lose their sense of moderation. They strive for isolated particulars, they fling themselves shortsightedly on narrow and trifling things, they raise the conditional above the universal; then they pursue pleasure and sensuality, they seek to gratify their hatred and envy of their neighbor, their art depicts what is one-sided what is valid from one perspective only”

HumanityDeclineModeration
Author:Adalbert Stifter
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“My people!" he shouted in the stentorian voice. "I shall speak now of us! Who are we? We are an articulate people, yet a people of few words. We feel deeply, yet refrain from embarrassing displays of emotion. Though firm, we are never too firm, though we love fun, we never have fun in a silly way that makes us appear ridiculous, unless that is our intent. Our national coloration, though varied, is consistent. Everything about us is as it should be, for example, we can be excessive when excess is called for, and yet, even in our excess, we show good taste, although never is our taste so super-refined as to seem precious. Even the extent to which we are moderate is moderate, except when we have decided to be immoderately moderate, or even shockingly flamboyant, at which time our flamboyance is truly breathtaking in a really startling way, and when we decide to make mistakes, our mistakes are as big and grand and irrevocable as any nation's colossal errors, and when we decide to deny our mistakes, we sound just as if we are telling the truth, and when we decide to admit our errors, we do so in a way that is truly moving in its extreme frankness! Am I making sense? Am I saying this well?”

FeelingsTruthFunMistakesNationalismExcessConsistencyModerationExceptionalismFlamboyance
Book:The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
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“Saadanne haarde Vilkaar underkaste de fleeste sig selv, for at følge Strømmen, og for at i Agt tage det som gemeenligen kaldes en Anstændighed, da dog intet er mindre anstændigt og meere daarligt, end at anvende Penge ikke alleene paa unyttige Ting, men endogsaa paa saadanne, som ere Legemet skadelige, og skille en ved mange uskyldige Fornøjelser. Jeg meener, at dens Opførsel er anstændig, der fører et Levnet lige tvert her imod; der sparer unyttige Udgifter, for at være i Stand til at anvende Penge til sin egen og Landets Ære; der gaaer til Fods, og bevæger sig, for at have et sundt Legeme; der æder og drikker saaledes til Middag, at han ikke spilder sit Aftens-Maaltiid. Saaledes er og stedse haver været mit Levnet; og veed jeg ikke at have giort Exces af noget, uden af Snus-Tabac, hvilket, saasom jeg omsider haver mærket, at det var mig ikke tienligt, jeg udi nogle Aar haver modereret.”

EconomyFashionHealthWalkingLifestyleModerationKeep It SimpleTrendMiddle WayHigh Class
Book:Epistler
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“Billion-Dollar Grave (The Sonnet) All our life we work hard to buy golden chains. With which we then bind ourselves. What's the point of living as fancy slaves? What will we do with our billion-dollar graves? We sit on our couch covering our eyes, Then we yell, why everything is so very dark! But no one hears for they are also shouting, Praying for a messiah to bring back life's spark. We've forged fascist fences out of all our gold, And have placed them as walls around us. Then we shout out - help, help, And beg to be saved by the universe! Greed of dollar is the toxic mold on the green of life. Life flourishes on moderation, not consumerist strife.”

MoneyAnxietyGreedLuxuryMaterialismConsumerismModerationPursuit Of HappinessSonnetLuxurious Lifestyle
Book:Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth
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“Even years from now, once I've stopped drinking, I will never stop trusting extremes. I will always believe that anything worth having is worth having in excess. The good things are worth hoarding until you have a cookie-fat ass, sex-aching loins, joy that fires through you like popping popcorn, or love, the weakness at the sight of some boy who makes your chest ache like indigestion. If it's good for you, it ought to be good for you in any amount, and you should track down every available bit of it. And if it's toxic, if it turns your liver into a hard little rock of scar tissue, or curls your memory at the edges like something burned in a fire, or makes your stomach flop, or your mind ache, or your personality contorted, you shouldn't buy into the bullshit about temperance.”

Too MuchExtremesExcessBlack And WhiteWorthModerationPassionate LifeExtremeToo Much Of A Good ThingExcessivenessHoardToo LittleLack Of Moderation
Book:Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
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“Moderation and limitation represent the highest with regard to human strivings. If also an infinite longing never abandons the person because he is rooted ... in the infinite and, thus, if a secret or open mourning never leaves him - the homesickness of one banished to finitude - so the knowledge, which belongs to the effect of limitations, gives the resignation a consoling, indeed, a cheerful character. Life closes itself around a circle. Every thing points to its place and a glimpse in the space of nature reveals the law of modesty. Separation is necessary so that unification can demonstrate itself; longing is necessary so that silence does not become rigid.”

BalanceLimitsLongingModerationResignationCheerfulness
Book:Grenzen der Gemeinschaft
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“I have heard that, with some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent’s authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself – which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue.”

ChildrenEvilParentsControlExcessModerationUpbringingTemperanceAbstinence
Author:Anne Brontë
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“[Adam] Michnik's openness to dialogue was neither a concession of defeat nor an expression of political opportunism on his part. It had its roots in a few fundamental beliefs that he never surrendered during his long public career and which have defined his political moderation to this day. The first one, connected to his modesty and humility, admits that we must always resist the temptation to believe in the righteousness of our views and ought to hold in check any form of moral egotism and arrogance that might creep in our views, however legitimate they might (appear to) be at some point. 'The angel who demands heroism not only of himself but of others,' Michnik cautioned, 'who perceives the world with a Manichaean simplicity and despises those who have a different concept of obligations toward others - this angel, loving heaven as he may, has already started on the path that leads to hell.' He was repeating an old favorite trope of Pascal, who warned us that those who pretend to behave like angels risk becoming fanatic beasts in the end.”

HumilityDialogueOpennessModestyModerationExtremismFanaticismSelf RighteousnessDogmatism
Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
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“And we also recognize this dance-like spirit, this ethos of grace: societal conduct, the control not only of written and established conventions, the virtuous mastery of forms of play where persons come close to each other without meeting and where they establish distance without damaging each other through indifference; amiability and not insistence is the atmosphere of this ethos of grace - its ethical law is the game and its observation, not seriousness. Forced distance between persons becomes ennobled into reserve. The offensive indifference, coldness, and rudeness of living past each other is made ineffective through the forms of politeness, respectfulness, and attentiveness. Reserve counteracts a too great intimacy.”

PlayGamesSocietyBalanceIntimacyModerationPolitenessTact
Book:Grenzen der Gemeinschaft
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