balance

Moderation in all things,
especially moderation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

The person who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon him- or herself, and not upon other people, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the person of moderation, the one of high character and of wisdom.

Plato

  
  
Everything that exceeds the bounds of moderation has an unstable foundation.

Seneca

     
Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a "sound mind in a sound body."

Jostein Gaarder
Sophie's World
   

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

Charles Caleb Colton

   
For governing a country well there is nothing better than moderation.  The mark of moderate persons is freedom from their own ideas.  Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, they have no destination in view and make use of anything life happens to bring their way.  Nothing is impossible for them.  Because they have let go, they can care for the people's welfare as a mother cares for her child.

Lao Tzu

  

The heart is great which shows moderation
in the midst of prosperity.


Lucius Annaeus Seneca

   

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Out of moderation a pure happiness springs.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

   

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.

Vivian Elizabeth Glyck

    

Moderation sees itself as beautiful; it is unaware that
in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and
sober and consequently ugly-looking.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

    
It's best to rise from life like a banquet, neither thirsty or drunken.

Aristotle
   

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

Joseph Hall

also:

Those who know when they have enough are wealthy.  The
silken cord running through the chain of all virtues is moderation.

Fred Van Amburgh

   

   
When you eat too much, you forget your truth, and fasting makes
you conceited, so eat with some discipline, and consciously.  Be
an ordinary human being.  Then the door will open, and
you'll recognize the way.  Lalla, be moderate!

Lalla
   

They will always be slaves who do not know how to live upon a little.

Horace

    

It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness,
and prefer things in measure to things in excess.

Seneca

   

  
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.

Maurice Maeterlinck
  

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Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned.  Be industrious
and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will
be healthy.  Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy.  At least,
you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences.

Benjamin Franklin
  

Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation for the body
and mind and can foster family and other relationships. But pleasure,
per se, offers no deep, lasting satisfaction or sense of fulfillment. The
pleasure-centered person, too soon bored with each succeeding level
of "fun," constantly cries for more and more. So the next new pleasure
has to be bigger and better, more exciting, with a bigger "high." A
person in this state becomes almost entirely narcissistic, interpreting all
of life in terms of the pleasure it provides to the self here and now.

Stephen Covey

   

Balance recognizes that many good things in life are good only
in moderation.  There really can be too much of something wonderful.
Most virtues, taken to excess become vices.  When an interest,
affection, or endeavor becomes utterly consuming, it doesn't
allow room for other kinds of goodness.

unattributed

  
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
The greatness of the human soul is shown by knowing how to keep
within proper bounds.  There are two equally dangerous extremes--
to shut reason out, and not to let nothing in.

Blaise Pascal
 

A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others
from a wider reference. . . it pardons shortcomings;
it consoles failure. It recommends moderation.

Thornton Wilder

   

   

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If you don't have enough you won't be happy.  Neither are you
happy if you have too much.  It is those who have enough
but not too much who are the happiest.

Peace Pilgrim
   

There is a proper measure in all things, certain limits beyond which and
short of which right is not to be found.  Who so cultivates the golden
mean avoids the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.

Horace

   

Moderate desires constitute a character fitted to acquire
all the good which the world can yield.

Timothy Dwight

  
All excess brings on its own punishment.  Moderation is
the inseparable companion of wisdom.

Charles Caleb Colton
  

Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total
abstinence from the things that are foul.

Frances E. Willard

  

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

Thomas Paine

  

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Abstinence is a path of choosing between profound suffering or abject
failure.  Moderation is a more humane choice.  Abstinence is a perpetual
cycle of holiness, misery and corruption.  Balance brings
more fulfillment and less suffering.

Earon Davis
  

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.

Dan Millman

   

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

William Somerset Maugham

  

        
    

Alone in his car heading west, it's easy for Jason
to feel sorry for himself and mad at the world.  But
then he gives a ride to Hector and learns that life
isn't nearly as negative as we sometimes see it,
and that the prejudice and discrimination that
he's experiencing aren't unique to him--and aren't
impossible to overcome.  The friendship between
this young man and his 70-year-old passenger is
an inspiring story of love and dealing with
obstacles in our lives.    
Book - Kindle