"Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide"
About this Quote
Cicero’s line looks like a tame bumper sticker until you remember who’s talking: a lawyer-politician watching the Roman Republic rot from the inside. “Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide” isn’t dreamy self-help; it’s a survival strategy for a public life built on reputation, restraint, and the constant threat of political whiplash.
The intent is ethical, but also tactical. Cicero’s Latin world prized temperantia: not merely eating less or speaking softly, but governing desire so you can govern others. Excess, in this context, isn’t just indulgence; it’s volatility. A man who can’t regulate appetite, anger, spending, or rhetoric is the kind of man who becomes easy to buy, easy to provoke, easy to discredit. Moderation reads as character, and character was political capital.
The subtext is anxious. Late-republic Rome was a machine that rewarded spectacle: ambitious generals, populist theatrics, sudden purges. Cicero himself benefited from eloquence and status, yet feared the crowd’s appetite for extremes. So moderation becomes a counter-program to the age’s escalating drama, a plea for the middle way when the center is collapsing.
Rhetorically, the sentence works because it’s absolute and humble at once. “Never” draws a hard boundary; “let…be your guide” softens it into a practice rather than a scold. Cicero is offering an identity: the person who doesn’t lunge. In an era of overreach, that’s not just virtue. It’s insulation.
The intent is ethical, but also tactical. Cicero’s Latin world prized temperantia: not merely eating less or speaking softly, but governing desire so you can govern others. Excess, in this context, isn’t just indulgence; it’s volatility. A man who can’t regulate appetite, anger, spending, or rhetoric is the kind of man who becomes easy to buy, easy to provoke, easy to discredit. Moderation reads as character, and character was political capital.
The subtext is anxious. Late-republic Rome was a machine that rewarded spectacle: ambitious generals, populist theatrics, sudden purges. Cicero himself benefited from eloquence and status, yet feared the crowd’s appetite for extremes. So moderation becomes a counter-program to the age’s escalating drama, a plea for the middle way when the center is collapsing.
Rhetorically, the sentence works because it’s absolute and humble at once. “Never” draws a hard boundary; “let…be your guide” softens it into a practice rather than a scold. Cicero is offering an identity: the person who doesn’t lunge. In an era of overreach, that’s not just virtue. It’s insulation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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