Temperance Quotes

Reflect that nothing merits admiration except thespirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything.

~ Seneca

As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice is an excellent thing in woman.

~ Anthony Trollope

A low voice is an excellent thing in woman.

~ Anthony Trollope

Of course I contradict myself. Why else would I hold things in and put the fire out?

~ Jennifer Tindugan-Adoviso

Virtues are formed by prayer.Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy.Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Spirit, and raises man to Heaven.

~ St. Ephrem Of Syria

I wish I could see a cherry blossom or a lotus flower. Where could they be?

~ Susumu Katsumata

The moral, I suppose, would be that the first requirements for a heroic career are the knightly virtues of loyalty, temperance, and courage. The loyalty in this case is of two degrees or commitments: first, to the chosen adventure, but then, also, to the ideals of the order of knighthood. Now, this second commitment seems to put Gawain's way in opposition to the way of the Buddha, who when ordered by the Lord of Duty to perform the social duties proper to his caste, simply ignored the command, and that night achieved illumination as well as release from rebirth. Gawain is a European and, like Odysseus, who remained true to the earth and returned from the Island of the Sun to his marriage with Penelope, he has accepted, as the commitment of his life, not release from but loyalty to the values of life in this world. And yet, as we have just seen, whether following the middle way of the Buddha or the middle way of Gawain, the passage to fulfillment lies between the perils of desire and fear.

~ Joseph Campbell

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.

~ Anne Brontë

With Truth, Reason, and Morality off the board, we then capture their last Rook —that prissy little virtue, Temperance— for she depends on those other three for her beauty and was thus left wholly undefended.

~ Geoffrey Wood

There is more food in a pennyworth of bread than in a gallon of ale.

~ Joseph Livesey

Thus Epicurus also, when he designs to destroy the natural fellowship of mankind, at the same time makes use of that which he destroys.For what does he say? ‘Be not deceived, men, nor be led astray, nor be mistaken: there is no natural fellowship among rational animals; believe me. But those who say otherwise, deceive you and seduce you by false reasons.’—What is this to you? Permit us to be deceived.Will you fare worse, if all the rest of us are persuaded that there is a natural fellowship among us, and that it ought by all means to be preserved? Nay, it will be much better and safer for you.Man, why do you trouble yourself about us? Why do you keep awake for us? Why do you light your lamp? Why do you rise early? Why do you write so many books, that no one of us may be deceived about the gods and believe that they take care of men; or that no one may suppose the nature of good to be other than pleasure?For if this is so, lie down and sleep, and lead the life of a worm, of which you judged yourself worthy: eat and drink, and enjoy women, and ease yourself, and snore.And what is it to you, how the rest shall think about these things, whether right or wrong? For what have we to do with you?You take care of sheep because they supply us with wool and milk, and last of all with their flesh. Would it not be a desirable thing if men could be lulled and enchanted by the Stoics, and sleep and present themselves to you and to those like you to be shorn and milked?For this you ought to say to your brother Epicureans: but ought you not to conceal it from others, and particularly before every thing to persuade them, that we are by nature adapted for fellowship, that temperance is a good thing; in order that all things may be secured for you?Or ought we to maintain this fellowship with some and not with others? With whom then ought we to maintain it?With such as on their part also maintain it, or with such as violate this fellowship?And who violate it more than you who establish such doctrines?What then was it that waked Epicurus from his sleepiness, and compelled him to write what he did write?

~ Epictetus

Discipline is needed in our temperance.

~ Sunday Adelaja

Quite possibly one of the most revealing passages about Shakespeare as a man comes from one of the roughest of the jottings made by gossip John Aubrey from his interview with William Beeston, son of the Christopher Beeston who had acted with Shakespeare's company. The partly cancelled note reads: 'the more to be admired, he was not a company keeper. [He] ... wouldn't be debauched, and if invited to, writ [i.e. wrote] he was in pain.' [Ch.24]

~ Ian Wilson

Health consists with temperance alone.

~ Alexander Pope