Too little
Unhelpful withholding: refuse to explain a word you understand because speaking might look showy.
Temperance
Resist turning every opportunity to speak into a demonstration of your learning.
Readiness to moderate appetites rather than let them dominate judgment.
Temperance moderates the appetite to consume, acquire or display more than the purpose calls for. Learning is pleasurable; a well-chosen detail can enliven a meal. The virtue lets that pleasure remain part of the occasion rather than become its owner.
Try a practice
A scene of understanding
At a reading-group break, a companion asks what a word in a poem means. You offer a short explanation, then leave the pause unfilled. They try the line aloud with a different emphasis and ask a question you had not considered. Your next paragraph never makes its entrance. The conversation has acquired another author.
An invented illustrative scene.
Temperance gives…
Temperance lets an explanation serve the exchange. An answer can be exact and enjoyable without becoming an uninterrupted display of everything the speaker knows.
What Temperance makes possible
You can enjoy a demanding book, an absorbing lecture or a rich discussion while deciding when enough has been taken for now. The capacity to stop can make returning more deliberate and more enjoyable.
Temperance: finding the balance
A fitting response
A fitting measure: answer the question, pause and welcome the other reader’s contribution.
Pursued too far
Display taking over: fill every pause with another explanation before anyone can respond.
A long answer can be fitting when people want to explore. The measure comes from the purpose and the willing participants, not a universal sentence limit.
Temperance in ordinary life
Another recommendation
Offer the resource that meets the request instead of the whole shelf.
Pleasure in learning
Choose a stopping point that leaves time for a commitment you also value.
Nearby virtues, different work
Generosity
Generosity makes understanding accessible; Temperance moderates the appetite to make the offering an exhibition.
Patience
Patience allows a process its time; Temperance allows the appetite its fitting measure.
Temperance and its counterfeits
Intellectual gluttony counterfeits Curiosity and Temperance when collecting more material replaces understanding and the collector calls every excess dedication. Temperance gives the appetite a considered measure; Curiosity pursues a real question.
How to cultivate Temperance
- Notice the appetite behind one more book, fact or turn to speak.
- Choose an amount that serves the present purpose.
- Leave room to digest what you have taken in.
Try it today
At a willing ordinary conversation, answer one question at the depth requested. Pause and let the other person decide whether they want more.
Did the pause improve the exchange? A follow-up question can be an invitation to go deeper.
Use ordinary choices about speaking, reading and consumption. This is not advice about food restriction, dependency or treatment.
Questions worth returning to
- What would enough accomplish here?
- Which worthwhile pleasure has the appetite begun to crowd out?
Keep the practice proportionate
Use ordinary choices about speaking, reading and consumption. This is not advice about food restriction, dependency or treatment.
These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.
About these practicesQuotations and further reading
Seven readings, one for each day. All remain available here. Historical arguments and fictional dialogue are identified in their source notes.
… Some schoolboys cannot read but in their own book; and the man of one idea cannot converse out of his own subject. …
William Hazlitt · Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
(zero-based); exact span 773–887
William Hazlitt’s essay voice · 1821–1822 essays; current Gutenberg 3020 transcriptionHazlitt’s single-topic talker cannot leave his own subject. The shared reading tests the speaker’s willingness to leave a pause in which another reader can contribute.
… But if words are neither useful to the speaker, nor necessary for the hearer, nor contain any pleasure or charm, why are they spoken? …
Plutarch · Morals: Ethical Essays
(zero-based); exact span 1623–1756
Plutarch’s essay voice; ancient report rather than modern evidence · 1888 George Bell and Sons translation; current Gutenberg 23639 transcription
English translation by Arthur Richard ShilletoThe three tests—use, need and pleasure—ask what the speech contributes. They let an enjoyable long discussion remain possible while measuring an unwanted performance.
… I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great persons, and to make of a man’s wit and words competitive parade is, in my opinion, very unbecoming a man of honour.
Michel de Montaigne · Essays
(zero-based); exact span 1284–1532
Michel de Montaigne’s essay voice · 1877 Cotton/Hazlitt edition; current Gutenberg 3600 transcription
English translation by Charles Cotton; revised and edited by William Carew HazlittMontaigne values discussion but rejects making wit a competitive parade. The page preserves the pleasure while limiting its appetite for exhibition.
… The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. …
John Ruskin · Sesame and Lilies
(zero-based); exact span 1054–1154
John Ruskin’s essay voice · 1894 George Allen edition; current Gutenberg 1293 transcriptionRuskin gives the newspaper a fitting occasion instead of a whole day. The example shows measure through use rather than declaring the pleasure worthless.
On no occasion call yourself a philosopher, and do not speak much among the uninstructed about theorems (philosophical rules, precepts); but do that which follows from them. …
Epictetus · A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
Encheiridion XLVI (zero-based)
Epictetus as transmitted by Arrian; Long’s English rendering · George Long translation; current Gutenberg 10661 transcription; exact first-print collation not asserted
English translation by George LongEpictetus turns attention from announcing philosophical learning to its expression in conduct. The pause in the reading exchange practices that measure. His historical hierarchy of instructed and uninstructed readers is not a rank assigned to this catalog’s audience.
… There is no satisfying lusts, even by a shower of gold pieces; he who knows that lusts have a short taste and cause pain, he is wise;
Dhammapada · Dhammapada
(zero-based); exact span 5–138
Canonical Buddhist verse, in Müller’s translation · Sacred Books of the East, volume X, part I; current Gutenberg 2017 transcription
English translation by F. Max MüllerThe shower of gold image makes appetite’s inability to be filled vivid. It is read here as a reflection on collecting and display, not as deprivation or treatment advice.
… Scholars, like princes, may learn something by being incognito. …
William Hazlitt · Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
(zero-based); exact span 564–627
William Hazlitt’s essay voice · 1821–1822 essays; current Gutenberg 3020 transcriptionIncognito learning loosens the need to announce rank. It offers a concrete way to enjoy an exchange without making recognition its price.
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Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.