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 always a vice.

There is a difference between how you hold a position and what the position is. Keeping your temper moderate is nearly always right, because heat rarely persuades and often costs you the room. Watering down the principle itself is a different act, and it usually gets dressed up as reasonableness. A half-kept commitment is not a smaller version of the commitment; it is a different thing altogether.

Notice when you are being asked to soften your tone and when you are being asked to soften the substance. Give ground freely on the first. On the second, stay where you are and say so quietly.