“Those words, ‘temperate and moderate’, are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.”
Thomas Paine, letter to the addressers on the late proclamation against seditious writings; in Moncure D. Conway, ed., The Writings of Thomas Paine (1895), vol. 3, p. 94–95.