Virtue index · Cardinal virtue
Temperance
Self-mastery: ordering the desires for pleasure, food, drink, and comfort by reason.
Definitions from the tradition
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III.10-12: Temperance is a mean with regard to bodily pleasures; the temperate man desires the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought.
Cicero, De Officiis I.93-104: Temperance and moderation (decorum) bring order and measure into every word and deed, with appetite obedient to reason.
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 141: Temperance restrains the appetite from the pleasures that most strongly draw it from reason; its parts include abstinence, sobriety, chastity, meekness, and modesty.
Scripture, Proverbs 16:32 (KJV): “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city”
Scripture, 1 Corinthians 9:25 (KJV): “every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things”
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version as given in the library’s text. Other definitions are summarized, not quoted.
Opposing vices
- Intemperance: Indulgence beyond what reason allows.
- Wrath: Anger without measure.
- Gluttony: Disordered desire for food and drink.
Works that show temperance (86)
The IliadHomerThe wrath of Achilles, the poem’s first word, costs countless Greek lives, showing the ruin of unruled anger. Opposing vice: Wrath.c. 8th century BCEThe OdysseyHomerThe crew perish for eating the cattle of the Sun against warning, while Odysseus restrains himself. Opposing vice: Intemperance.c. 8th century BCETheogony and Works and DaysHesiodHesiod warns against loading all one's goods on a ship or overloading a wagon, and sums it up as due measure in all things.c. 700 BCThe SymposiumPlatoAlcibiades describes Socrates’ self-command in the cold of Potidaea and before temptation.c. 385 BCEThe RepublicPlatoPlato describes temperance as the harmony of the soul’s parts under reason.c. 380 BCEStatesmanPlatoThe digression on measure makes the due mean the standard of every art, and the royal weaver prizes the temperate nature as one strand of the city.c. 360 BCLawsPlatoBook I calls the victory over oneself the first and best of victories and makes self-mastery, tested even at the drinking party, the aim of training.c. 348 BCPoeticsAristotleChapter XXII asks for diction that mixes ordinary and unusual words with moderation, clear without being mean.c. 335 BCEOn Duties (De Officiis)Marcus Tullius CiceroCicero's teaching on decorum asks Marcus to govern speech, appetite and bearing so that his whole life is consistent.44 BCCatiline's War and The Jugurthine WarSallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus)Sallust says Cato's ambition was for temperance, discretion and austerity, contending with the modest in simplicity and with the temperate in abstinence.c. 42-40 BCLetters from a StoicSenecaSeneca counsels moderation in wealth, food, and pleasure, and practice in going without.c. 63–65 CEDiscourses (selection) and EncheiridionEpictetusEncheiridion X names continence as the power to use when a fair face presents itself as an appearance.c. 108 CELives of the Noble Grecians and RomansPlutarchAlcibiades, Sulla, Demetrius, and Antony show how great gifts are undone by unruled passion. Opposing vice: Intemperance, Wrath.c. AD 100-120MeditationsMarcus AureliusMarcus Aurelius trains himself to master anger, desire, and fear by reason. Opposing vice: Wrath.c. 170–180 CEThe Roman HistoryAmmianus MarcellinusAmmianus praises Julian's chastity, plain food and short sleep, and holds up sober provincial bishops as a model against Roman luxury.c. 390 CEThe Poetic EddaAnonymous (Old Norse)Hovamol warns that the more a man drinks the less he masters his mind, and Othin offers his own drunkenness at Gunnloth's as the cautionary example.c. 800–1100 (MS c. 1270)The Canon of Medicine, Book IIbn Sina (Avicenna)The regimen of Part 3 makes moderation in food, exercise, sleep and bathing, and in the emotions, the ordinary means of keeping health.c. 1025Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of ConstantinopleGeoffrey de VillehardouinVillehardouin condemns the covetousness of those who kept back booty from the common stock after the conquest.c. 1207-1213The MuqaddimahIbn KhaldunChapters 2 and 3 show how simplicity of life sustains a people's strength and how luxury in the later generations of a dynasty undoes it.1377UtopiaThomas MoreThe Utopians seek only true pleasures and keep gold for chamber-pots and fetters so that no one will covet it.1516 (Latin); English 1551Institutes of the Christian ReligionJohn CalvinBook III, chapter 10 teaches believers to use food, clothing and pleasures with gratitude and moderation, neither rejecting God's gifts nor indulging in them.1536; definitive Latin edition 1559The Taming of the ShrewWilliam ShakespeareBy the road scene of Act 4, Scene 5 Kate has mastered her temper and turns Petruchio's contradictions into a shared joke.c. 1590-92 (First Folio 1623)Journey to the West (A Mission to Heaven)Wu Cheng'enPa Kiel's ravenous eating and the Monkey's theft of the peaches and pills set appetite against the discipline the pilgrimage requires. Opposing vice: Gluttony.c. 1592The Comedy of ErrorsWilliam ShakespeareLuciana urges her sister to govern her jealousy and speak gently to her husband.c. 1594 (First Folio 1623)Romeo and JulietWilliam ShakespeareThe Friar warns before the wedding that violent delights have violent ends and urges a moderate love.c. 1595 (published 1597)OthelloWilliam ShakespeareCassio loses his lieutenancy after one night of drinking on watch, and laments it in Act 2, Scene 3.c. 1603-04 (published 1622)MacbethWilliam ShakespeareMacbeth’s vaulting ambition leads from one murder to many. Opposing vice: Ambition and presumption.c. 1606SonnetsWilliam ShakespeareSonnet 129 condemns lust as perjured and savage, and Sonnet 146 urges the soul to starve the body's excess. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1609The TempestWilliam ShakespeareProspero masters his own fury with his nobler reason, and he charges Ferdinand to keep chaste until the wedding.c. 1610-11 (First Folio 1623)The CollarGeorge HerbertThe poem weighs the heart's plea for double pleasures against the discipline of service and comes down for restraint.1633AreopagiticaJohn MiltonMilton argues that God entrusts each grown person with the diet of the mind as of the body, to be governed by temperance rather than by a licenser.1644Paradise LostJohn MiltonRaphael counsels Adam to be lowly wise and Michael names temperance among the virtues that make a paradise within.1667; revised 1674The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary RowlandsonMary RowlandsonShe gives up tobacco from the day of her capture and refuses Metacom's offered pipe.1682Essays, Moral and Political (selection)David HumeOf the Delicacy of Taste and Passion recommends cooling an excessive sensitivity to fortune by cultivating a calm, refined taste.1741-1752The Spirit of the LawsMontesquieuBook XI's claim that even virtue needs limits makes moderation the condition of political liberty.1748Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardThomas GrayThe villagers' sober wishes never learned to stray, and they kept the noiseless tenor of their way.1751Discourse on the Origin of InequalityJean-Jacques RousseauNatural man's few desires, simple food and freedom from luxury are presented as the ground of his health and contentment.1755The Journal of John WoolmanJohn WoolmanIn 1756 he lays down a growing shop of goods and keeps only his tailoring and apple trees so as to live free of cumbers.1774The Virginia Declaration of RightsGeorge MasonSection XV names moderation, temperance and frugality among the habits without which no free government can be preserved.1776A Vindication of the Rights of WomanMary WollstonecraftChapter 4 sets the aim of women's education as power over themselves, the government of passion by reason.1792Mansfield ParkJane AustenFanny Price holds to her principles amid the Bertrams’ indulgences.1814Ode on a Grecian UrnJohn KeatsThe ode contrasts the urn's untouched love with human passion that leaves a heart cloyed, a burning forehead and a parching tongue.written 1819; published 1820The Thousand and One Nights (Lane's translation, Volume I)Anonymous; translated by Edward William LaneGhánim keeps his distance from Ḳoot-el-Ḳuloob once he learns she belongs to the Khaleefeh, though he loves her.1838-1841Jane EyreCharlotte BrontëShe governs her passion for Rochester when every feeling urges her to yield.1847The Tenant of Wildfell HallAnne BrontëHuntingdon's drinking turns a minor hunting injury fatal, while Hattersley's reform shows the other path open to the same company. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1848A Disquisition on GovernmentJohn C. CalhounHis concurrent majority makes compromise, the restraint of each interest's demands, the principle that preserves constitutional government.1849 (published 1851)KalevalaElias Lönnrot (compiler)Kullervo's unchecked anger after the stone in his bread leads to destruction on all sides and finally his own death. Opposing vice: Wrath.1835; enlarged 1849A Wonder-Book for Girls and BoysNathaniel HawthorneMidas learns, when his breakfast turns to gold, that bread and water matter more than riches, and he washes away the Golden Touch.1851Tanglewood TalesNathaniel HawthorneUlysses' greedy companions become swine at Circe's feast, while Ulysses, protected by the white flower, keeps his head.1853WaldenHenry David ThoreauIn "Higher Laws" Thoreau drinks only water and keeps a plain diet of bread, rice and potatoes, treating restraint in appetite as the path to a purer life.1854The Age of FableThomas BulfinchMidas learns that his wish for gold would starve him and begs to be freed from the golden touch.1855Because I could not stop for DeathEmily DickinsonDeath knows no haste, and the speaker's calm, measured recollection refuses both panic and self-pity.written c. 1862-1863; published 1890The Wise Woman (A Double Story)George MacDonaldIn the forest trial Rosamond masters her envy of the flower-child's pony and blesses the child's gift instead.1875God's GrandeurGerard Manley HopkinsThe picture of a land seared with trade and smeared with toil warns against a life so absorbed in getting and working that the senses go numb, being shod. Opposing vice: Intemperance.written 1877; published 1918A Child's Garden of VersesRobert Louis StevensonPoems of bedtime and quiet play honor the day’s order and limits. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1885Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeRobert Louis StevensonJekyll's two months of abstinence collapse into a frenzy that ends in the Carew murder, showing what is lost when appetite is indulged rather than mastered. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1886The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar WildeDorian's eighteen years of pursuing every sensation recommended in Lord Henry's new Hedonism leave the portrait coarsened and his friends ruined. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1891The Theory of the Leisure ClassThorstein VeblenThe analysis of feasts, stimulants and fashion in Chapters Four and Seven exposes how far consumption is driven by display rather than need.1899Five Children and ItE. NesbitThe children's hasty wishes for beauty and boundless wealth bring trouble, and they find peace only when they give up wishing.1902The Tale of Peter RabbitBeatrix PotterPeter’s greedy feast of lettuces, beans, and radishes brings on sickness and fright. Opposing vice: Gluttony.1902The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismMax WeberPuritan ethics in Chapter 5 forbid the enjoyment of wealth in luxury and idleness, directing it instead to plain living and saving.1905The Wind in the WillowsKenneth GrahameToad’s mania shows appetite without measure; friends urge restraint. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1908If—Rudyard KiplingDreams and thoughts must not become masters, and Triumph and Disaster must be treated the same, a discipline of the passions throughout the poem.written c. 1895; published 1910Death in VeniceThomas MannThe story shows by its absence what temperance guards against, as Aschenbach's lifelong control gives way to a desire he lets rule him on the Lido. Opposing vice: Intemperance.1912The Prussian Officer and Other StoriesD. H. LawrenceIn The White Stocking Ted Whiston, after striking his wife, is sickened by his own violence and comes back to tenderness with her.1914The Waning of the Middle AgesJohan HuizingaJean Gerson urges restraint against excess in devotion and in courtly literature, a measured voice in an age Huizinga describes as given to extremes.1919Webb v. United StatesSupreme Court of the United StatesThe certified facts set the aim of breaking a habit against the practice of feeding it, a contrast at the heart of the classical virtue of self-mastery.1919The Waste LandT. S. EliotThe Fire Sermon's close joins Augustine and the Buddha in renouncing burning desire, and Damyata calls for control.1922A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United StatesSupreme Court of the United StatesCardozo, sympathetic to reform, draws a measured line between delegation to curb unfair practices and an unlimited power over industry.1935NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.Supreme Court of the United StatesHughes stresses that the act compels no agreement and leaves employers free to discharge for proper reasons, keeping the holding within measured bounds.1937Experience and EducationJohn DeweyChapter 5 makes self-control, the power to stop and think before acting on impulse, the true aim of a free education.1938Caps for SaleEsphyr SlobodkinaThe peddler's growing rage, from a shaken finger to stamping feet, only makes the monkeys more mischievous, a comic picture of why self-control matters. Opposing vice: Wrath.1940The Screwtape LettersC. S. LewisScrewtape's account of the mother's gluttony of delicacy in Letter XVII shows that intemperance can lie in fussiness over small portions as well as in excess.1942Politics and the English LanguageGeorge OrwellThe rules to cut every word that can be cut and prefer short words ask the writer to restrain the urge to inflate.1946ShaneJack SchaeferShane walks away from Chris's taunts at Grafton's rather than use his skill on a boastful cowhand.1949Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. SawyerSupreme Court of the United StatesTruman, though convinced he was right, complied with the Court's ruling and returned the mills at once.1952The Magician's NephewC. S. LewisIn the garden Digory carries the silver apple back to Aslan without eating it, though its smell makes him hungry and thirsty.1955To Kill a MockingbirdHarper LeeWhen Bob Ewell spits in his face, Atticus wipes it off and walks away without striking back.1960SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, Inc.Supreme Court of the United StatesHarlan urges judicial restraint, declining to fashion a rule the legislature had not enacted, however salutary it might seem.1963Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School DistrictSupreme Court of the United StatesThe students chose a silent armband and a fast rather than any disorderly form of protest, as Fortas emphasizes.1969Owl at HomeArnold LobelUpstairs and Downstairs shows Owl wearing himself out trying to be everywhere at once, a comic lesson in being content with one place at a time.1975Mouse SoupArnold LobelThe two large stones give up their restless longing for the far side of the hill once the mouse tells them it is just like their own.1977Grasshopper on the RoadArnold LobelGrasshopper enjoys morning, afternoon and evening alike, while the beetles, the housefly and the dragonflies each let one thing take over their lives.1978Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. LewisSupreme Court of the United StatesStewart restrains the Court from adding remedies Congress did not enact, however useful they might seem.1979SEC v. EdwardsSupreme Court of the United StatesThe case illustrates the danger of yielding to promises of steady, high returns without asking how they could be earned.2004Washington: A LifeRon ChernowChernow shows Washington governing a fierce temper through decades of deliberate self-command.2010
In Plutarch’s Lives
Lycurgus, Pericles, Aemilius Paulus, Aristides, Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder), Lysander, Agesilaus, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Phocion, Marcus Porcius Cato (the Younger), Agis IV, Artaxerxes II, Galba
Quotations
“the commonest things, such as lie within everybody's grasp, are more valuable than the riches which so many mortals sigh and struggle after.”
Frequently cited
“early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”
“because covetousness, which is the root of all evil, let and hindered them.”
“A moneyed interest in the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as it operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it to the government,—just so far as it operates in creating sympathies and interests that would not otherwise exist,—is it opposed to all the principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriotism.”
“It is better, my son, to honor Equality, who always joins friend to friend, city to city, allies to allies;”
“Remain where thou art, proud Templar, or at thy choice advance!”
“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you”
Frequently cited
“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour”
“Strike if you will, but hear”
Frequently cited
“O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”
“wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.”
“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
Frequently cited
“These violent delights have violent ends”
“When men once turn to brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold to their brutality.”
“O! that all may take Heed and beware of Covetousness! O that all may learn of Christ, who was meek and low of Heart!”
Frequently cited
“I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them.”
“Less good there lies | than most believe In ale for mortal men; For the more he drinks | the less does man Of his mind the mastery hold.”
Frequently cited
“in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
“With God's help, let us endeavor to live here contentedly, thankful that we were not cast upon some bare and inhospitable island”
Frequently cited
“the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance”
“Whoever does what she is bound to do, be she the dirtiest little girl in the street, is a princess, worshipful, honorable.”
Frequently cited
“I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
Discussion questions
- Why might ruling your spirit be harder than taking a city?
- Is temperance only about saying no?
- How does temperance make other virtues possible?
- Which character in your reading was ruled by appetite or anger, and what followed?
Other virtues: Prudence · Justice · Fortitude · Faith · Hope · Charity · Piety · Honor · Industry · Humility · Magnanimity · Friendship