In politics and religion, a moderate is an individual who is not extreme, partisan or radical. In recent years, "political moderates" has gained traction as a buzzword.
The existence of the ideal moderate is disputed because of a lack of a moderate political ideology. Many people claim to be moderate because of a lack of adherence with the more radical sides of the political or religious spectrum, rather than advocating a specific stance.
Aristotle favoured conciliatory politics dominated by the centre rather than the extremes of great wealth and poverty or the special interests of oligarchs and tyrants.
Read more about Moderate: As A Political Position
Famous quotes containing the word moderate:
“Our age is an age of moderate virtue
And of moderate vice
When men will not lay down the Cross
Because they will never assume it.
Yet nothing is impossible, nothing,
To men of faith and conviction.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“No man, however benevolent, liberal, and wise, can use a large fortune so that it will do half as much good in the world as it would if it were divided into moderate sums and in the hands of workmen who had earned it by industry and frugality. The piling up of estates often does great and conspicuous good.... But no man does with accumulated wealth so much good as the same amount would do in many hands.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)