Temperance

Temperance is the practice of moderation. It was one of the four "cardinal" virtues held to be vital to society in Hellenic culture, and considered central to Christian behavior by the Catholic Church and is an important tenet of the moral codes of other world religions—for example, it is one of the Five Precepts of Buddhism.

• A nation’s ideals are usually a disguise, and are not to be taken as history. Courage and temperance, or manliness(andreia), and the meden agan or “nothing in excess” of the Delphic inscription — are the rival mottoes of the Greek; he realizes the one frequently enough, but the other only in his peasants, philosophers, and saints. CH. XIII The Morals and Manners of the Greeks, Sec V Character, P.377
  • Will and Ariel Durant The Story of Civilization, by Will and Ariel Durant (1935)

• Temperance is that discreet regulation of the desires and passions, by which we are enabled to enjoy pleasures without suffering any consequent inconvenience. They who maintain such a constant self-command, as never to be enticed by the prospect of present indulgence, to do that which will be productive of evil, obtain the truest pleasure by declining pleasure.
  • Epicurus, as quoted in Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers (Half-Hours with the Freethinkers) by Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts (1877)

• These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:
  1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
  • Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography (1817).

• Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame,
  When once it is within thee; but before
  Mayst rule it, as thou list: and pour the shame,
  Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.
  It is most just to throw that on the ground,
  Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.
  • George Herbert, The Temple (1633), The Church Porch, Perirrhanterium, Stanza 5.

• My experience through life has convinced me that, while moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spiritous liquors is the best safeguard of morals and health.
  • Robert E. Lee, letter to a "Friends of Temperance" society (9 December 1869); as quoted in Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1875) by John William Jones, p. 170.

• If all the world
  Should in a pet of temp'rance, feed on pulse,
  Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
  Th' All-giver would be unthank'd, would be unprais'd.
  • John Milton, Comus (1637), line 720.

• Impostor; do not charge most innocent Nature,
  As if she would her children should be riotous
  With her abundance; she, good cateress,
  Means her provision only to the good,
  That live according to her sober laws,
  And holy dictate of spare temperance.
  • John Milton, Comus (1637), line 762.

• Well observe
  The rule of Not too much, by temperance taught
  In what thou eat'st and drink'st.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book XI, line 531.

• O madness to think use of strongest wines
  And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
  When God with these forbidden made choice to rear
  His mighty champion, strong above compare,
  Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
  • John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671), line 553.

• Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a widow.
  • John Neal, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 576.

• Moses … takes one form of desire, that one whose field of activity is the belly, and admonishes and disciplines it as the first step, holding that the other forms will cease to run riot as before and will be restrained by having learnt that their senior and as it were the leader of their company is obedient to the laws of temperance.
  • Philo, On The Special Laws, Part IV, p. 77.

• Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense,
  Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence.
  But Health consists with Temperance alone,
  And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1734) Epistle IV, lines 79-82.

• Nineteenth-century feminists expressed their anger with male sexual domination and promiscuity in a number of movements, including the campaigns against prostitution nd slavery and the fight for temperance. All sections of the women’s movement advocated “voluntary motherhood,”” a slogan that addressed both men’s sexual violation of their wives and women’s desire to control childbearing. Women urged... to adopt a single standard-the female standard of chastity until marriage, followed by monogamy and moderation.
  • Leslie J. Reagan, “When abortion was a crime: women, medicine, and law in the United States, 1867-1973”, University of California Press, (December 31, 1996) “Introduction”, p.12

• The history of all peoples is full of bloody and revolting pages. So much blood has been spilled for every new construction, every new teaching or religion! That is why humanity urgently must learn the two great concepts — Tolerance and Cooperation. On these two foundations the New Epoch will be built.
  • Helena Roerich, Letters I, 6 June 1935

• The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience: temperance in prosperity, and courage in adversity.
  • Seneca the Younger, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 576.

• Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
  Leave gormandizing.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act V, Scene 5, line 56.

• Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only
  Which your disease requires.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (c. 1613), Act I, Scene 1, line 124.

• Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half the human race to misery.
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813), Notes.

• If a workman can conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance.
  • Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book V, Chapter II, Part II, Article IV, pg.951.

• Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle, the strength of the soul, and the foundation of virtue.
  • Jeremy Taylor, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 576.

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 783-84.

• And he that will to bed go sober,
  Falls with the leaf still in October.
  • Beaumont and Fletcher, Bloody Brother, Song, Act II. Scene 2; (From an old "Catch").

• Of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. [Tar Water.]
  • Bishop Berkeley, Siris, Par. 217.

• Call'd to the temple of impure delight
  He that abstains, and he alone, does right.
  If a wish wander that way, call it home;
  He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
  • William Cowper, Progress of Error, line 557.

• Temp'rate in every place, abroad, at home,
  Thence will applause, and hence will profit come;
  And health from either, he in time prepares
  For sickness, age, and their attendant cares.
  • George Crabbe, Borough, Letter XVII, line 198.

• Abstinence is whereby a man refraineth from any thyng which he may lawfully take.
  • T. Elyot, Governour, Book III. Chapter XVI.

• Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
  • Samuel Johnson, Hannah More's Johnsoniana, p. 467.

• Of my merit
  On that pint you yourself may jedge:
  All is, I never drink no sperit,
  Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
  • James Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers, First Series. No. VII, Stanza 9.

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Temperance (virtue)

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