Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 June 1788)
This has sometimes been paraphrased as "Suspicion is a virtue if it is in the interests of the good of the people".
1780s
“The virtue of frugality lies in a middle between avarice and profusion, of which the one consists in an excess, the other in a defect of the proper attention to the objects of self–interest.”
Section II, Chap. I.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part VII
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Adam Smith 175
Scottish moral philosopher and political economist 1723–1790Related quotes

“Virtue lies in the middle ground.”
"Los Viajes"

Diary, 1897
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Les mathématiciens n'étudient pas des objets, mais des relations entre les objets ; il leur est donc indifférent de remplacer ces objets par d'autres, pourvu que les relations ne changent pas. La matière ne leur importe pas, la forme seule les intéresse.
Source: Science and Hypothesis (1901), Ch. II: Dover abridged edition (1952), p. 20

Lila (1991)
Context: Between the subject and the object lies the value. This Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it may be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed.

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.

Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 365.

Socratic Memorabilia, J. Flaherty, trans. (Baltimore: 1967), p. 147.