Moderation
idea · 5 works · 5 mentions · 6 anchored passages
moderation · attention to one's own affairs · contented themselves · defect rather than excess · happy mean · moderate · moderate achievements · moderate exercise · moderate things · moderately
spoken of as
1 expressionSôphrôn“moderation”1 mention
Iliad (Greek)
And King Apollo answered, "Lord of the earthquake, you would not think me moderate [ sôphrôn] if I were to fight you about a pack of miserable mortals, who come out like leaves in summer and eat the fruit of the field, and presently fall lifeless to the ground.
in the texts
Iliad
The concept of moderation or good sense, explicitly glossed in the Greek as sôphrôn in Apollo's justification for declining battle.
And King Apollo answered, "Lord of the earthquake, you would not think me moderate [ sôphrôn] if I were to fight you about a pack of miserable mortals, who come out like leaves in summer and eat the fruit of the field, and presently fall lifeless to the ground.
On the Peace
The restrained political disposition opposed to meddlesomeness, covetousness, and imperial overreach.
Well then, the qualities which we must possess as a foundation if we are to be happy and prosperous, namely, piety and moderation and justice and virtue in all its phases, I mentioned a moment ago.
But no such thing can come to pass until you are persuaded that tranquillity is more advantageous and more profitable than meddlesomeness, justice than injustice, and attention to one’s own affairs than covetousness of the possessions of others.
For example, if the Thebans, after the battle which they won over the Lacedaemonians, had contented themselves with liberating the Peloponnesus and making the other Hellenes independent and had thenceforth pursued peace, while we continued to make such blunders, then neither could this man have asked such a question nor could we ourselves have failed to realize how much better moderation is than meddlesomeness.
To Nicocles
Moderation is the king's preference for attainable noble aims, measured action, and balanced endurance of fortune.
for the happy mean is to be found in defect rather than in excess.
and believe that you will enjoy the utmost happiness, not if you rule over the whole world at the price of fears and dangers and baseness, but rather if, being the man you should be, and continuing to act as at the present moment, you set your heart on moderate achievements and fail in none of them.
and not those who, being themselves in sorry straits, hold forth to others the promise of a prosperous fortune, but those who, while making modest claims for themselves, are able to deal with both affairs and men, and are not upset by the vicissitudes of existence, but have learned to bear moderately and bravely both the good and the evil chances of life.
To Philip, II
The generally esteemed virtue used as a contrast to Philip's exceptional pursuit of honor.
To have an insatiate desire for anything else in the world is ignoble—for moderation is generally esteemed—but to set the heart upon a glory that is great and honorable, and never to be satiated with it, befits those men who have far excelled all others.
Lovers
The principle that a moderate, not excessive or deficient, amount of exercise, food, or study is most beneficial, used by Socrates to test the equation of philosophy with much learning.
Moderate or much?
Moderate things, he replied.
And are studies among the adjuncts of the soul?