dots-menu
×

Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Thomas Paine (1737–1809)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1199
AUTHOR: Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
QUOTATION: Those words, “temperate and moderate,” are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.—A thing, moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS PAINE, letter to the addressers on the late proclamation against seditious writings.—The Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Moncure D. Conway, vol. 3, pp. 94–95 (1895).
SUBJECTS: Moderation