Moderation is the process or trait of eliminating, lessening, or avoiding extremes. It is used to ensurenormality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted. Common uses of moderation include:
Moderation is also a principle of life. In ancient Greece, the temple of Apollo atDelphi bore the inscriptionMeden Agan (μηδὲν ἄγαν)—"Nothing in excess". Doing something "in moderation" means not doing it excessively. For instance, someone who moderates their food consumption tries to eat all food groups, but limits their intake of those that may cause deleterious effects to harmless levels.
According to thehistorian andsociologist of scienceSteven Shapin:[1]
From thepre-Socratics through theHippocratic andGalenic corpus, and in the writings of suchStoic philosophers asEpictetus andSeneca, health was seen to flow from observingmoderation—in exercise, in study, and in diet.
InChristianity,moderationism is the position that drinkingalcoholic beveragestemperately is permissible, thoughdrunkenness is forbidden (seeChristianity and alcohol).
In the apocryphalBook of Wisdom moderation is listed among the greatest virtues.[2]
Wasat, also calledwasatiyyah (Arabic:وسطية) is the Arabic word forbest,middle,centered,balanced. In theIslamic context, it refers to the "middle way" or "moderation"—a justly balanced way of life, avoiding extremes and experiencing things in moderation.[3]Moderate Muslims use contextual relativism[jargon] to interpret theQuran.
The Jewish philosopherMaimonides, who was heavily influenced by Islamic and Aristotelian thought, also set forth moderation as an ideal within Judaism.[4]
Moderation is considered a key part of one's personal development in ChineseTaoist philosophy and religion. It is one of the three jewels of Taoist thought. There is nothing that cannot be moderated including one's actions, one's desires, and even one's thoughts. It is believed that by doing so one achieves a more natural state, faces less resistance in life, and recognises one's limits.[5] Moderation as a guiding principle is complex and can be difficult to not only accept, but also understand and implement. It can also be recursive in that one should moderate how much one moderates (i.e. to not be too worried about moderating everything or not to try too hard to find the perfect middle ground)
Moderation as a principle ofTaoist philosophy turns up in all three of its main texts.
Moderation is a characteristic of theSwedish national psyche, more specifically described by the Swedish synonymLagom.
The dictionary definition ofmoderation at Wiktionary