That moderation which nature prescribes, which limits our desires by resources restricted to our needs, has abandoned the field; it has now come to this — that to want only what is enough is a sign both of boorishness and of utter destitution. – Seneca (Seneca the Elder)

Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present. – William Lloyd Garrison

The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. – Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab