Finding The Middle Path

Lord Bolingbroke, The Occasional Writer, No. II.:

Between all extremes there is a certain middle point, which men of genius perceive, and to which men of honor adhere in private and in public life.

Thus avarice and prodigality are atan immense distance; but there is a space marked out by virtue between them, where frugality and generosity reside together. Thus again, to abandon those, whom it is our interest to support, is an excess of folly; and to support the interests of other people, to the ruin of our own, is an excess of folly likewise. But there are lines described by prudence , between these two excesses, within which our common interests meet, and may proceed together.