Too little
Unchecked appetite: you take several notebooks because they are available and tomorrow is uncertain.
Temperance
Resist taking more than a fair share merely because uncertainty makes you anxious.
Readiness to moderate appetites rather than let them dominate judgment.
Temperance moderates appetites so they do not dominate judgment. Uncertainty can make acquisition feel like control: one more object, one more turn, one more reassuring message. Recognize that pull and ask what the purpose actually calls for. Moderation concerns proportionate desire, not a display of how little you can live on.
Try a practice
A choice during disruption
After a delayed delivery, the shop has only a few notebooks left. You choose one for the work you planned, although taking two would soothe tomorrow’s uncertainty. Another customer reaches the display and finds a choice still there. Your future self has sent a long shopping list; you answer the part that belongs to today.
An invented illustrative scene.
Temperance gives…
A fitting limit can leave resources available for other needs and leave your attention free for decisions that another acquisition will not settle.
What Temperance makes possible
You can enjoy having enough without making an anxious appetite the measure of what you should take. A clear reason can replace the impulse to accumulate.
Temperance: finding the balance
A fitting response
Fitting measure: you take what the task’s purpose requires within the agreed arrangement.
Pursued too far
Deprivation display: you refuse what you genuinely need in order to appear exceptionally restrained.
The fitting amount depends on the purpose and the arrangement. Temperance is not an instruction to make every share smaller, especially where essential needs are concerned.
Temperance in ordinary life
A limited display
Choose the amount fitting a nonessential task rather than treating uncertain availability as a reason to take everything you can.
Reassurance sought
Notice when repeatedly checking a nonurgent update adds stimulation rather than information.
Nearby virtues, different work
Fairness
Fairness assesses how resources should be shared; Temperance moderates the appetite that may distort your participation.
Frugality
Frugality avoids needless waste; Temperance concerns appetite even when no waste is involved.
Temperance and its counterfeits
Austerity theater is a counterfeit of Temperance: denying a legitimate need for praise makes restraint another appetite.
Calculated grabbing is a counterfeit when a tidy explanation hides taking more merely because you can.
How to cultivate Temperance
- Name the appetite without insulting yourself for having it.
- Separate the present purpose from an imagined unlimited future.
- Review the agreed limit before taking another turn.
Try it today
Choose a routine nonessential appetite, such as collecting stationery or extending time on a shared device. Set a limit that fits its purpose and notice the impulse to exceed it. Do not practice through deprivation of food, rest, treatment or essential resources.
Ask whether the limit made judgment clearer, rather than whether it proved your toughness.
No restriction of nourishment, rest, medication or other essential care is invited. Dependency and health concerns require appropriate support rather than character judgments.
Questions worth returning to
- What does another item promise me?
- Has my purpose changed, or only my appetite?
Keep the practice proportionate
No restriction of nourishment, rest, medication or other essential care is invited. Dependency and health concerns require appropriate support rather than character judgments.
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.
… He whose (desires) are few gets them; he whose (desires) are many goes astray.
Lao-tse · The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics
(zero-based); exact span 96–174
Tao Teh King verse in James Legge’s translation · James Legge translation; current Gutenberg 216 transcription; exact first-print collation not asserted
English translation by James LeggeLegge’s Taoist verse contrasts few desires with desires that multiply. The remaining notebooks can become an anxious pursuit rather than a useful provision. The verse’s spiritual argument does not determine how much anyone needs.
… For it is a happy disposition of the soul when reason does not annihilate passion, but orders and arranges it in the case of temperate persons. …
Plutarch · Morals: Ethical Essays
(zero-based); exact span 823–966
Plutarch, On Moral Virtue · 1888 George Bell and Sons translation; current Gutenberg 23639 transcription
English translation by Arthur Richard ShilletoPlutarch’s account orders passion rather than annihilating it. Enjoying a useful notebook need not become either accumulation or hostility to pleasure. This ancient psychology is a philosophical comparison, not a clinical model.
… Now temperance is a state, wherein reason holds the reins, and manages the passions as a quiet and well-broken-in animal, finding them obedient and submissive to the reins and masters over their desires. …
Plutarch · Morals: Ethical Essays
(zero-based); exact span 2202–2405
Plutarch, On Moral Virtue · 1888 George Bell and Sons translation; current Gutenberg 23639 transcription
English translation by Arthur Richard ShilletoThe reins image gives reason a guiding role among appetites. In this collection the ordinary choice is proportion, not bodily deprivation. The metaphor is not an instruction for horse handling or a test of dominance over oneself.
… Those whose mind is well grounded in the (seven) elements of knowledge, who without clinging to anything, rejoice in freedom from attachment, whose appetites have been conquered, and who are full of light, are free (even) in this world.
Dhammapada · Dhammapada
(zero-based); exact span 4–240
Dhammapada verse in F. Max Müller’s translation · Sacred Books of the East, volume X, part I; current Gutenberg 2017 transcription
English translation by F. Max MüllerThe verse places freedom from clinging within a Buddhist path and its elements of knowledge. It can prompt a question about attachment to the shop’s remaining stock; it does not make all appetite or enjoyment a character fault.
… I have some desire to enjoy the present good, and some fondness for the past; but I am not at all given to build castles in the air, nor to look forward with much confidence or hope to the brilliant illusions held out by the future. …
William Hazlitt · Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners
(zero-based); exact span 85–317
William Hazlitt · 1821–1822 essays; current Gutenberg 3020 transcriptionHazlitt allows enjoyment of the present without building elaborate expectations around a promised future. Using the one notebook can be more satisfying than the imagined security of an ever-growing stack.
… There is no guilt greater than to sanction ambition; no calamity greater than to be discontented with one's lot; no fault greater than the wish to be getting. …
Lao-tse · The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics
(zero-based); exact span 3–161
Tao Teh King verse in James Legge’s translation · James Legge translation; current Gutenberg 216 transcription; exact first-print collation not asserted
English translation by James LeggeLegge’s verse gives a severe diagnosis of the desire to keep acquiring. The shop scene asks a narrower question: does tomorrow’s imagined need justify taking more today? The spiritual superlatives are not judgments on poverty, legitimate ambition or essential provision.
… For when you have once desired money, if reason be applied to lead to a perception of the evil, the desire is stopped, and the ruling faculty of our mind is restored to the original authority. …
Epictetus · A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion
(zero-based); exact span 82–274
Epictetus as transmitted by Arrian, in George Long’s translation · George Long translation; current Gutenberg 10661 transcription; exact first-print collation not asserted
English translation by George LongEpictetus describes reason interrupting an acquired desire for money. The parallel is examining an appetite before following it. His Stoic description does not make money or ordinary provision evil; the article concerns a fitting amount of available stationery.
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Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.