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Tempered, gradual animation, the methodical restrain of sensations and energies, the equilibrium of sickness and health in each creature--this is nature's essence, its immutable law, this is what it's based on and what it adheres to. -- Ivan Turgenev
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason. -- Blaise Pascal
Ambition is best tempered with self-knowledge! -- William Hague
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. -- George Orwell
A theory must be tempered with reality. -- Jawaharlal Nehru
Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, leads to ruin. -- Tacitus
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. -- Voltaire
I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism. -- William Hague
The worst tempered people I have ever met were those who knew that they were wrong. -- David Letterman
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. -- William E. Gladstone
There was a Republican majority of the Senate, and it tempered the nature of the nominations being made. -- Spencer Abraham
The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall. -- Taylor Caldwell
It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow. -- Miguel de Cervantes
I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered. -- Rufus Wainwright
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. -- Sydney J. Harris
To be a good actor... it is necessary to have a firmly tempered soul, to be surprised at nothing, to resume each minute the laborious task that has barely just been finished. -- Sarah Bernhardt
In course of time, religion came with its rites invoking the aid of good spirits which were even more powerful than the bad spirits, and thus for the time being tempered the agony of fears. -- Paul Harris
A spirit, breathing the language of independence, is natural to Englishmen, few of whom are disposed to brook compulsion, or submit to the dictates of others, when not softened by reason, or tempered with kindness. -- Joseph Lancaster
Power must be used, but it must be tempered by soul-searching and the recognition of our human capacity for error. That is the maxim that should inform our approach to every challenge, from reforming state government to engaging in foreign affairs. -- Eliot Spitzer
I keep fit, I work out, I eat pretty damn well, I don't drink like a fish, and all of those things are tempered with a holistic mind-set that you need to damn well respect the vehicle that you're walking around in. -- Mick Fleetwood
Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace. -- John F. Kennedy
A man who dreads trials and difficulties cannot become a revolutionary. If he is to become a revolutionary with an indomitable fighting spirit, he must be tempered in the arduous struggle from his youth. As the saying goes, early training means more than late earning. -- Kim Jong Il
Every day of my life I walk with the idea that I am black, no matter how successful I am. And our success is tempered by that; you're successful in this way given the fact you are black, and most blacks don't get to that point. -- Danny Glover
My dad talks about the times when we'd play backyard cricket: If I got bowled out, I'd just refuse to let go of the bat and swing it at anyone who tried to take it away from me. I like to think that's been tempered a bit over the years. -- Chris Hemsworth
Christlike communications are expressions of affection and not anger, truth and not fabrication, compassion and not contention, respect and not ridicule, counsel and not criticism, correction and not condemnation. They are spoken with clarity and not with confusion. They may be tender or they may be tough, but they must always be tempered. -- L. Lionel Kendrick
I had a vague idea of the song's impact in the '60s, but that was tempered by the hate mail and threats I was receiving. It was only about ten years ago, when I finally put it back in my show because so many people were asking for it, that I understood 'Society's Child' real impact. -- Janis Ian
For a lot of people, Superman is and has always been America's hero. He stands for what we believe is the best within us: limitless strength tempered by compassion, that can bear adversity and emerge stronger on the other side. He stands for what we all feel we would like to be able to stand for, when standing is hardest. -- J. Michael Straczynski
Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason -- Blaise Pascal
Action is thought tempered by illusion. -- Elbert Hubbard
Words are healers of the sick tempered. -- Aeschylus
I am even-tempered and emotionally well balanced -- Louise Hay
France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams. -- Thomas Carlyle
I never go ballistic, I'm always measured and tempered. -- Tom Cotton
Courage is impulsive; it is narcissism tempered with nihilism. -- Ayelet Waldman
Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Liberality should be tempered with judgment, not with profuseness. -- Hosea Ballou
An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination. -- Voltaire
The need here is professional closeness tempered by emotional distance. -- Robert Audi
The tempered light of the woods is like a perpetual morning. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The secret to my success has been optimism tempered by anger. -- Robert Anton Wilson
Candor and generosity, unless tempered by due moderation, lead to ruin -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus
I am a reasonable and sane functionalist tempered by irrational frivolity. -- Alexander Girard
Untested faith was rarely strong. Deep, abiding faith was tempered through fire. -- Robin Lee
The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy. -- H. L. Mencken
Selfishness, if but reasonably tempered with wisdom, is not such an evil trait. -- Giovanni Ruffini
The worst-tempered people I've ever met were people who knew they were wrong. -- Wilson Mizner
Provocation doesn't make me ill-tempered: it only shows me how ill-tempered I am. -- C. S. Lewis
Ambition is ever tempered by experience. Otherwise, fortune makes fools of us all. -- Mark Kingwell
A human life gains lustre and strength only when it is polished and tempered. -- Mas Oyama
Drug use makes you snappy, and you get very bad-tempered and have terrible hangovers. -- Mick Jagger
Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn. -- Daniel Keyes
Your passion must be tempered with patience. Maybe long-suffering patience would be a better word. -- Jack White
I'm certainly driven, I hate losing, I can be ruthless and short-tempered and terribly competitive. -- Alastair Campbell
Have a little faith in me, Volger." "I have great faith, tempered with vast annoyance. -- Scott Westerfeld
Science at best is not wisdom; it is knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge tempered with judgment. -- Peter Ritchie Calder
It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"!(Institutio III.2.3) -- John Calvin
The ferocity we show our foes must be tempered by the lesson we hope to teach. -- Frank Herbert
The souls of heroes are forged by the gods and tempered with the pain of life. -- Brian Rathbone
Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music. -- Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I believe in evolution in the sense that a short-tempered man is the successor of a crybaby. -- Criss Jami
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography. -- Ambrose Bierce
The anger of slow, mild, loving people has a lasting quality that mere bad-tempered folk cannot understand. -- Margaret Deland
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Passion is power, And, kindly tempered, saves. All things declare Struggle hath deeper peace than sleep can bring. -- William Vaughn Moody
Theoretical approaches have their place and are, I suppose, essential but a theory must be tempered with reality. -- Jawaharlal Nehru
A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought. -- Albert Einstein
My God, Donald Trump is unfit! He's ill-tempered, he's unsuited, he is not qualified, he's unsuited to be president. -- Barack Obama
I am annoyed to find myself continually described by people whom I have never set eyes on as bad-tempered. -- Evelyn Waugh
Be generous, and pleasant-tempered, and forgiving; even as God scatter favors over thee, do thou scatter over the people. -- Saadi
If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. (95) -- Karen Armstrong
A dog, however nice he is, and sweet-tempered, doesn't have much of a range of options. A human being does. -- Tenzin Palmo
The critic ... should be not merely a poet, not merely a philosopher, not merely an observer, but tempered of all three. -- Margaret Fuller
My view of the world is always tempered by the fact that there are people who are less fortunate than I am. -- Billy Corgan
Most people think of Ariel when they think of mermaids. What they don't know is that she's surrounded by really hot-tempered mermaids. -- Edward Kitsis
Learning is a good thing, but unless it's tempered by faith and a love of freedom, it can be very dangerous indeed. -- Paul Kengor
A sharp-tempered woman, or, for that matter, a man, Is easier to deal with than the clever type Who holds her tongue. -- Euripides
Many of the snarly bad-tempered teachers whom we remember with hatred were really nice people soured by years of anxiety and penny-pinching. -- Gilbert Highet
Material success is always tempered by the recollection that there was some kind of happiness that was supposed to come with it. -- Robert Breault
We are not merely tempered and schooled by failure but compelled, in however subtle a fashion, to become something other than we were. -- Anthony Lane
Wherefore did he [God] create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue? -- John Milton
We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers - we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals. -- Erich Maria Remarque
I am a Liberal, yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflexion, and renouncement, and I am, above all, a believer in culture. -- Matthew Arnold
Patience is so valuable I'm willing to wait forever to achieve it. And while I wait, I may as well get busy being short-tempered. -- Jarod Kintz
If you think I'm one of those people who try to be funny at breakfast you're wrong. I'm invariably ill-tempered in the early morning. -- Daphne du Maurier
My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her. -- Jodi Picoult
The Colombians are good-tempered people. They are used to waiting for buses that are late, used to riding buses and trains that do not arrive. -- Paul Theroux
Each generation imagines that we're all going to hell. Each generation goes through a little hell and comes out heat tempered and better than before. -- Paul Harvey
Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy. Sell to the movies. -- Vladimir Nabokov
Tyranny is usually tempered with assassination, and Democracy must be tempered with culture. In the absence of this, it turns into a representation of collective folly. -- John Stuart Mackenzie
It's a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do. -- Alan Sillitoe
When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us. -- Margery Allingham
Suffering did different things to different people...Some souls became tempered, unshakable in their faith, while others became twisted and mis-shapen, throwing off all connection to God. -- Naomi Ragen
Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said. -- Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice. -- Rudyard Kipling
The light in her eyes was beyond description, yet it did not instill improper thoughts: it inspired a love tempered by awe, purifying the hearts it inflamed. -- Umberto Eco
Do you see what little is required of a man to live a well-tempered and god-fearing life? Obey these precepts, and the gods will ask nothing more. -- Marcus Aurelius
Sassafras wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar hath to some a delicacy beyond the China luxury. -- Charles Lamb
... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered. -- Amelia Barr
She was nothing more than a mere good-tempered, civil and obliging Young Woman; as such we could scarcely dislike her -- she was only an Object of Contempt -- Jane Austen
There is no earthly reason why a solo string instrument or voice, having the possibility to play or sing pure intonation, should want, or try, to be tempered. -- Lara St. John
His was the strong soul, gentle, but tempered with fire, fervent, heroic and good, the helper and friend of mankind. It is such as he who make progress possible. -- Thomas W. Martin
It's never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he's always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go! -- Kenneth Grahame
Childhood may have periods of great happiness, but it also has times that must simply be endured. Childhood at its best is a form of slavery tempered by affection. -- Robertson Davies
Any allegation of runaway capitalism has to be tempered by the observation that today we have the largest public sectors and the highest taxes the world has ever known. -- Johan Norberg
The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
You come to us well tempered, my child, and it is not in my nature to be sorry for it. It is a well tempered blade that is the strongest. -- R.L. LaFevers
Little eyes must be good-tempered or they are ruined. They have no other resource. But this will beautify them enough. They are made for laughing, and, should do their duty. -- Leigh Hunt
I was pretty hot-tempered all through school. I remember my high school basketball coach telling me: 'Boy, if you don't learn to control that temper, you're gonna kill somebody.' -- Tony Dorsett
The President proclaims war, and those Senators who dissent are not those who know better, but those who can afford to...Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Oh, trebly blest the placid lot of those whose hearth foundations are in pure love laid, where husband's breast with tempered ardor glows, and wife, oft mother, is in heart a maid! -- Euripides
I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run. -- Mick Jagger
Perhaps she drives men away. Perhaps, without even being able to help herself, she just puts men into her ill-tempered car and drives them off: to quarries, dumps, small anonymous bodies of water. -- Lorrie Moore
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce
The soufflÃ© is considered the prima donna of the culinary world. The timbale is her more even-tempered relative. On closer acquaintance, both become quite tractable and are great glamorizers for leftover foods. -- Irma S. Rombauer
As the war on terrorism spreads and prolongs, the fruits of ending the threat of terrorism around the world will be tempered with a whole new series of problems to be addressed and resolved. -- Charles Bass
Vanity is apt to inspire contempt, but that becomes immediately tempered by a gentler and more gracious feeling; for the vain man desires to win our approbation, and in this way he flatters us. -- Arthur Alfred Lynch
Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive. -- Marya Mannes
Frequently we do not leave the past behind. We clasp on to it. We dissect it, and let fears for the future, tempered by the past, unconsciously prevent us from taking up the task eternal. -- Ray Simpson
Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the spider, trembling at every breeze, may in the end prove as links of tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or woe. -- Lydia Sigourney
A spirit, breathing the language of independence, is natural to Englishmen, few of whom are disposed to brook compulsion, or submit to the dictates of others, when not softened by reason, or tempered with kindness." -- Joseph Lancaster

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