Definition and Explanation

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, point 1809:
   • "Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods."
2. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, question 141:
   • Temperance is the virtue by which man aligns his natural desires with reason, rejecting any animal desires that are not subject to reason.
   • Temperance is the perfection of the concupiscible appetite, which is the sensitive appetite that attracts us to goods and repels us from evils.
3. Aristotle's Rhetoric, Book I, Chapter 9:
   • "Temperance is the virtue that disposes us to obey the law where physical pleasures are concerned."