Jose Rizal Quotes

Most virtue lies between two vices.

Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.

This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.

Virtue lies half way between two opposite vices.

Moral virtue is a mean . . . between two vices, one of excess and the other of defect; . . . it is such a mean because it aims at hitting the middle point in feelings and in actions. This is why it is a hard task to be good, for it is hard to find the middle point in anything.

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

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

Moral qualities are so constituted as to be destroyed by excess and by deficiency . . .

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean.

The best things carried to excess are wrong.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

Most safely shall you tread the middle path.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

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

Be not righteous overmuch.

In every extreme there is vice and not virtue.

it is no easy task to find the middle.

Moderation in all things..

… vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in the mean, and moderation is virtue. Every abiding place outside the bounds of moderation is only exile to the wise man.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.