The Golden Mean
Virtue lies in the middle — courage between cowardice and recklessness, generosity between stinginess and waste.
The golden mean is Aristotle's doctrine (Nicomachean Ethics, 4th century BCE) that moral virtue is a 'mean' (mesotēs) between two vices — one of excess and one of deficiency — found relative to the person and the situation, not as a rigid arithmetic midpoint. Courage stands between cowardice and rashness, generosity between meanness and extravagance. Hitting the mean takes practical wisdom, and the idea became one of the most enduring frameworks in Western ethics.
A note on Qoheleth's counsel "Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?" (Ecclesiastes 7:16-17). Because it warns against going too far in either direction, this verse is often read as an early statement of Aristotle's golden mean. The resemblance is real on the surface, but the two are doing very different work.
In its own setting, Qoheleth is offering hard-won prudential wisdom, not a theory of virtue. The book surveys a world where the righteous sometimes perish and the wicked sometimes prosper (Ecclesiastes 7:15), and its advice is survival counsel: do not ruin yourself through extremism of any kind. The very next verse — "It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from this withdraw not thy hand" (Ecclesiastes 7:18) — frames the lesson as practical balance for a person navigating an unpredictable life. The point is to avoid self-destruction, not to define what goodness is.
Aristotle's golden mean is a structural claim about the nature of virtue itself. For him each moral virtue is, by definition, a mean between two named vices — courage lies between rashness and cowardice, generosity between prodigality and stinginess — and this mean is "relative to us," fixed in each situation by practical reason. The mean is not merely a caution against going too far; it is what virtue essentially *is*, a precise calibration between an excess and a deficiency. Qoheleth never names paired vices or makes balance the definition of any virtue; he warns against extremism, while Aristotle builds virtue out of the mean.
So the earlier idea is genuinely distinct: prudent warning against ruinous excess is not the same thing as a doctrine that every virtue is the measured midpoint between two faults. Aristotle's structured account entered Jewish thought only later — in the Hellenistic encounter with Greek philosophy and, more fully, through the medieval falasifa (it shapes Maimonides' account of the "middle way" in the Mishneh Torah and Shemoneh Perakim). That is why Qoheleth's counsel is kept separate from this concept, even though both speak the language of avoiding extremes.
How it traveled
- RhetoricChalcis · -335explains
- Nicomachean EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Eudemian EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Magna MoraliaChalcis · -322explains
- Institutio OratoriaRome · 95explains
- Avot DeRabbi NatanYavneh · 220
- BerakhotSura (Babylonia) · 500
- Mivchar HaPeninimGranada · 950
- Duties of the HeartZaragoza (Saragossa) · 1080
- Ibn Ezra on ProverbsTudela (Navarre) · 1145
- Mishneh Torah, Human DispositionsFostat (Old Cairo) · 1180synthesis
- Guide for the PerplexedCairo · 1190
- Yalkut Shimoni on TorahTiberias · 1250
- Sha'arei TeshuvahGirona · 1260
- Sha'arei OrahGuadalajara · 1260
- Sha'arei TzedekCastile · 1265
- ZoharGuadalajara · 1280
- Sefer HaIkkarimSoria · 1425explicit_citation
- Akeidat YitzchakTarragona · 1490
- Abarbanel on TorahNaples · 1505
- Pardes RimmonimTzfat · 1548
- Sha'arei KedushaDamascus · 1572
- Reshit ChokhmahTzfat · 1575
- Ohr HaChammah on ZoharTzfat · 1620
- Mikdash Melekh, RaMaZ Commentary on ZoharTzfat · 1680
- Mesillat YesharimAmsterdam · 1738
- Mikdash Melekh on ZoharTzfat · 1750
- Midrash PinchasKorets · 1780
- TanyaLiadi · 1797
- Likutei MoharanBreslov (Ukraine) · 1802
- Maor VaShemeshKrakow (Cracow) · 1817
- Sha'arei AvodahStrashelye · 1820
- Likutei HalakhotBreslov (Ukraine) · 1840
- Malbim on ProverbsBucharest · 1860
- Malbim on PsalmsBucharest · 1860
- Malbim on GenesisBucharest · 1860
- Malbim on JobBucharest · 1860
- Mishnah BerurahRadin · 1907
- Sulam on ZoharJerusalem · 1945
- Historia RomanaRomeexplains
Key passages(20)
HaEmunot veHaDeot · Saadia Gaon · 922 CE
וכבר התבאר ממה שהצעתיו ובארתיו למי שקורא הספר, שכל מי שרוצה להתנהג בענין מן השלשה עשר ענינים האלה, תהיה בטלה עצתו ולא נכונה; מפני שהוא מחייב להתנהג בו לבדו, והניח לשתף עמו זולתו, והתעות לו מחפצו, וק
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Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
שְׁתֵּי קְצָווֹת הָרְחוֹקוֹת זוֹ מִזּוֹ שֶׁבְּכָל דֵּעָה וְדֵעָה אֵינָן דֶּרֶךְ טוֹבָה וְאֵין רָאוּי לוֹ לָאָדָם לָלֶכֶת בָּהֶן וְלֹא לְלַמְּדָן לְעַצְמוֹ. וְאִם מָצָא טִבְעוֹ נוֹטֶה לְאַחַת מֵהֶן אוֹ
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Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
הַדֶּרֶךְ הַיְשָׁרָה הִיא מִדָּה בֵּינוֹנִית שֶׁבְּכָל דֵּעָה וְדֵעָה מִכָּל הַדֵּעוֹת שֶׁיֵּשׁ לוֹ לָאָדָם. וְהִיא הַדֵּעָה שֶׁהִיא רְחוֹקָה מִשְּׁתֵּי הַקְּצָווֹת רִחוּק שָׁוֶה וְאֵינָהּ קְרוֹבָה לֹ
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Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
וּמִי שֶׁהוּא מְדַקְדֵּק עַל עַצְמוֹ בְּיוֹתֵר וְיִתְרַחֵק מִדֵּעָה בֵּינוֹנִית מְעַט לְצַד זֶה אוֹ לְצַד זֶה נִקְרָא חָסִיד. כֵּיצַד. מִי שֶׁיִּתְרַחֵק מִגֹּבַהּ הַלֵּב עַד הַקָּצֶה הָאַחֲרוֹן וְיִהְ
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Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
חוֹלֵי הַגּוּף טוֹעֲמִים הַמַּר מָתוֹק וּמָתוֹק מַר. וְיֵשׁ מִן הַחוֹלִים מִי שֶׁמִּתְאַוְּה וְתָאֵב לְמַאֲכָלוֹת שֶׁאֵינָן רְאוּיִין לַאֲכִילָה כְּגוֹן הֶעָפָר וְהַפֶּחָם וְשׂוֹנֵא הַמַּאֲכָלוֹת הַטּ
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עוד הדת הנימוסית תקצר מן האלהית. כי היא לא תוכל להגביל פרטי הפעולות שראוי שיפועלו בכל מעלה ומעלה, לפי שהיא לא תודיע אלא הכוללים, כמו שהגדרים אינם אלא לדברים הכוללים, כי הפרטי אין לו גדר, כן פעולות הפר
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Sefer HaIkkarim · Rabbi Yosef Albo · 1425 CE
ואין ספק שאם היה מחוק האדם מצד שהוא אדם לדעת ההשערה הזאת, היה אריסטו מדבר בה בלי ספק, אבל בעבור שאין מטבע האדם לעמוד על זה מעצמו הניח אותה לזולתו, והיא ההשערה האלהית. ועל כן נמצא אותו מדבר במעלות דרך
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הסוג הד' הוא צרעת הבגד והוא מהפסד המדות אשר הוקבעו בו מהתכונות הפחותות שקדמו אליו וכמה פעמים נזכרו פחיתות המדות ומעלתם בלשון בגדים בכל התורה כלה הסירו הבגדים הצואים (זכריה ג׳:ד׳) בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנ
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Tosefta Kifshutah on Chagigah · Saul Lieberman · 1949 CE
26. מה עליו על אדם, להלך באמצע, ובלבד שלא יהא נוטה וכו'. וכ"ה בד ובכי"ל, אלא שבכי"ל הושלמה המלה "מה" בין השורות. ובכי"ע: מעלין על אדם וכו'. ובירושלמי הנ"ל: מה יעשה, יהלך באמצע. ושמא הוא "נתיב יושר" שה
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In Ethica Nicomachea Paraphrasis (Pseudepigraphum Olim A Constantino Palaeocappa confectum et olim sub auctore Heliodoro Prusensi vel Andronico Rhodio vel Olympiodoro) · Anonymi In Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea
It therefore follows that since moral goodness is itself a middle state and is entirely concerned with pleasures and pains, and badness consists in excess and defect and is concerned with the same thi
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These distinctions having been established, it must be grasped that in every continuum that is divisible there is excess and deficiency and a mean, and these either in relation to one another or in re
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Hence moral goodness must be concerned with certain means and must be a middle state. We must, therefore, ascertain what sort of middle state is goodness and with what sort of means it is concerned.
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Let each then be taken by way of illustration and studied with the help of the schedule: IrascibilitySpiritlessnessGentleness RashnessCowardiceCourage ShamelessnessDiffidenceModesty ProfligacyInsensit
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But then the best state in relation to each class of thing is the middle state. It is clear, therefore, that the virtues will be either all or some of these middle states.
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And since there is a certain state of character which results in its possessor’s being in one instance such as to accept an excess and in another such as to accept a deficiency of the same thing,it fo
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So that since courage is the best state of character in relation to feelings of fear and daring, and the proper character is neither that of the daring (for they fall short in one respect and exceed i
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And since there are excess and deficiency in regard to these things, it is clear that there is also a middle state, and that this state of character is the best one, and is the opposite of both the ot
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And since, as we said in the other cases, so here also there is excess and deficiency (for the harsh man is the sort of man that feels this emotion too quickly, too long, at the wrong time, with the w
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Since, therefore, both those states of character are wrong, it is clear that the state midway between them is right, for it is neither too hasty nor too slow-tempered, nor does it get angry with the p
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