Temperance Quotes

“I love you," she sobbed, rubbing her hands over his face, his hair, his chest, making sure he was solid and real. "I love you, and I thought you were dead. I couldn't bear it. I thought I would die too."

"I'd walk through fire for you," he rasped, his voice hoarse and broken. "I have walked through fire for you.”
― Elizabeth Hoyt, Wicked Intentions

“It is a queer thing. In a time of great need, when powerful leadership is demanded, the people—confused and excited—hear only the strident voices of the audacious, and refuse to listen to the voice of wisdom which, being wise, is temperate.”
― Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe

“Reflect that nothing merits admiration except the
spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“It is a mistake to think that Christians ought all to be teetotallers; Of course it may be the duty of a particular Christian, or of any Christian, at a particular time, to abstain from strong drink, either because he is the sort of man who cannot drink at all without drinking too much, or because he wants to give the money to the poor, or because he is with people who are inclined to drunkenness and must not encourage them by drinking himself. But the whole point is that he is abstaining, for a good reason, from something which he does not condemn and which he likes to see other people enjoying.
One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons—marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning.
One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as "intemperate" as someone who gets drunk every evening. Of course, it does not show on the outside so easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road. But God is not deceived by externals.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“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, The Discourses

“People who know how to keep their mouths shut are rare.”
― Dudjom Rinpoche, Counsels from My Heart

“For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education.”
― Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

“The happiness of a Nation consists in true Religion, Piety, Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and the contempt of Avarice and Ambition. They in whomsoever these virtues dwell eminently, need not Kings to make them happy, but are the architects of their own happiness; and whether to themselves or others are not less than Kings.”
― John Milton, Eikonoklastes. In answer to a book intitled, Eikon Basilike, the portraiture of his Sacred Majesty in his solitudes and sufferings. A new edition, corrected by the late Reverend Richard Baron.

“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, Shakespeare: The Evidence: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work

“I didn't drink because I knew that if I jumped into a bottle, I'd pull the cork in after me.”
― Ron Clifford

“Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume.”
― Stanislas Jean de Boufflers

“Clémentine viewed good deeds as trickery; sensitivity, a weakness from which we must protect ourselves; modesty, an error that always disadvantages the charms of one who's pretty; sincerity, an idiocy that makes a fool; humility, an absurdity; temperance, a deprivation for the best years of one's life; and religion, laughable hypocrisy.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“And Cyrus, they say, observed: 'How much trouble you have at your dinner, grandfather, if you have to reach out your hands to all these dishes and taste all these different kinds of food!'
'Why so?' said Astyages. 'Really now, don't you think this dinner much finer than your Persian dinners?'
'No, grandfather,' Cyrus replied to this; 'but the road to satiety is much more simple and direct in our country than with you; for bread and meat take us there; but you, though you make for the same goal as we, go wandering through many a maze, up and down, and only arrive at last at the point that we long since have reached.”
― Xenophon, Cyropaedia, Volume 1, books 1-4

“What wisdom and what virtue there is in judging oneself truly and in remaining oneself! You have a part that only you can play; and your business is to play it to perfection, instead of trying to force fortune. Our lives are not interchangeable. Equally by aiming too high and by falling too low, one misses the path to the goal. Go straight ahead, in your own way, with God for guide.”
― Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods

“Prohibition had been good to Tijuana . . . . The number of saloons had doubled in the span of a few years. Gambling clubs mushroomed: Monte Carlo, the Tivoli Bar, the Foreign Club. Raunchy establishments mixed with others that promised a glimpse of "old Mexico," a false creation more romantic than any Hollywood film. But what did the tourists know? The Americans streamed into Mexico, ready to construct a new playground for themselves, to drink the booze that was forbidden in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, but flowed abundantly across the border. Lady Temperance had no abode here.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow

“me dulcis saturet quies;
obscuro positus loco
leni perfruar otio,
nullis nota Quiritibus
aetas per tacitum fluat.
sic cum transierint mei
nullo cum strepitu dies.
plebeius moriar senex.
illi mors gravis incubat
qui, notus nimis omnibus,
ignotus moritur sibi.”
― Seneca, Thyestes

“Of course I contradict myself. Why else would I hold things in and put the fire out?”
― Jennifer Tindugan-Adoviso

“The Napoleon of Temperance” or “Father of Prohibition,” activist Neal S. Dow helped to construct the “Maine Law” of 1851, outlawing the use of alcohol for reasons other than mechanical or medicinal purposes. He was the mayor of the city when “The Portland Rum Riot” broke out, leading to the militia shooting into the crowds. One person was killed and seven wounded when the people demanded to know why there was rum stored in the City Hall. Early in the American Civil War, on November 23, 1861, former mayor Dow was commissioned as a Colonel in the 13th Maine Infantry. On April 28th of the following year, he received a commission as Brigadier General in the Union Army. His service included commanding two captured Confederate forts near New Orleans and fighting in the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana. During this skirmish he was wounded and later captured. General Dow was traded and gained his freedom 8 months later from General William H. F. Lee, the son of Robert E. Lee.

Neal S. Dow died on October 2, 1897, and was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Portland. His home, the Neal S. Dow house built in 1829, was used as a stop for slaves on the “Maine Underground Railway” and is located at 714 Congress Street in Portland. The historic building is now the home of the Maine Women's Christian Temperance Union.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, Salty & Saucy Maine: Sea Stories from Castine

“It is the power of temperance, the steadying hand of wisdom, and the warmth of love for all that shapes my words even in the midst of the most heightened of disagreements. For if I allow temperance, wisdom and the warmth of love to guide any engagement I may have (even though it might be one with my most hostile enemy), I will have set the stage for a place where seemingly unassailable walls can come down, hands can be extended in unexpected friendship, and the impossible is made impossibly possible.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“O that every season might be Bealtaine that we might see Your Light plainly. But no. For in each time and season we learn patience, prudence, temperance, and wisdom. If all seasons were the same, we would miss You in Your fullness.”
― L.B. Ó Ceallaigh, The Book of Common Prayer: Ecclesia Seclorum

“We classify the positive traits that protect us from excess as strengths of temperance. What are the types of excess of special concern? Hatred—against which forgiveness and mercy protect us. Arrogance—against which humility and modesty protect us. Short-term pleasure with long-term costs—against which prudence protects us. And destabilizing emotional extremes of all sorts—against which self-regulation protects us.”
― Christopher Peterson, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification

“Remember that greed, envy, pride, anger, gluttony, laziness, lies, and pride cannot triumph against an intelligent mind, honest heart, and holistic soul who lives with faith, love, humility, patience, temperance, diligence, truthfulness, and generosity.
~Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from Speranza Odyssey Trilogy”
― Angelica Hopes, Landscapes of a Heart, Whispers of a Soul

“If God hates liquor, how's come Jesus's very first miracle was turning water into the finest wine anybody ever drank?"

"I don't know, sir..."

"I'll tell you why," Junior said. "It's 'cause God don't got any damn problem with liquor.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“You are a songbird wreathed in flames, but you need to learn how to slow down and breathe if you're ever going to learn how to fly.”
― Courtney M. Privett, The Crystal Lattice

“I was directed by the coachman to by far the most splendid temperance coffee-house I had ever seen: but it seemed too fine a lodging-house for harbouring the more characteristic English and I had not crossed the Border to see cosmopolites...”
― Hugh Miller, First Impressions of England and its People

“Anger is a fire that burns the holder more than the target.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”
― Epictetus, Discourses and Selected Writings

“What reason, then, remains why the doctor, who practises the Art in a manner worthy of Hippocrates, should not be a philosopher? For since, in order to discover the nature of the body, and the distinctions between diseases, and the indications for remedies, he must exercise his mind in rational thought, and since, so that he may persevere laboriously in the practice of these things, he must despise riches and exercise temperance, he must already possess all the parts of philosophy: the logical, the scientific, and the ethical. Nor need he fear, if he condemns riches and lives temperately, that he will be doing something out of place; for all the rash and unjust things that men do, they do because they are seduced by covetousness, or bewitched by pleasure. So he must of necessity have the other virtues as well; for they are all connected, and it is not possible to take any one of them without all the others following at once, as if strung on a single thread. (from the essay "That the Best Physician Is Also a Philosopher")”
― Galen

“It is true that even then it [alcohol] was known and acknowledged that many were greatly injured by it; but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims of it were to be pitied and compassionated, just as are the heirs of consumption and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace. If, then, what I have been saying is true, is it wonderful that some should think and act now as all thought and acted twenty years ago? and is it just to assail, condemn, or despise them for doing so? The universal sense of mankind on any subject is an argument, or at least an influence, not easily overcome. The success of the argument in favor of the existence of an overruling Providence mainly depends upon that sense; and men ought not in justice to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Practicing temperance in my daily life helps me maintain a balanced perspective, whether it's managing work-life boundaries or making mindful choices about my health and well-being. This virtue ensures that we remain grounded and centered, even amidst life's temptations and distractions.”
― J. T. Wells, Modern Stoicism: Overcome Life’s Challenges and Discover Peace, Joy, and Emotional Strength Through Ancient Philosophy