Temperance Tarot Card Meaning

What is the meaning of the Temperance card?

The card before it is Death and the card after it is the Devil. An angel pours water from one cup into another. Nothing is won or lost in the picture; the stream just passes between the cups.

Waite lists the upright card as "Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation." The words are about household and business habits more than about spirit. Book T is closer to chemistry: "Combination of forces, realization, action (material effect, good or evil)." In that sentence mixing is neutral, and the outcome depends on what goes in.

The sites we checked lean on the calm side. Biddy Tarot lists "Balance, moderation, patience, purpose", and Labyrinthos and The Tarot Guide add peace and tranquillity. All three keep the middle-path idea; Labyrinthos and The Tarot Guide also keep the money side, with saving at a steady pace.

Temperance reversed: excess, discord or something else?

Waite's reversed list splits into two unequal halves. The first is church talk: "churches, religions, sects, the priesthood", and even "the priest who will marry the Querent". The second is plain conflict: "disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests."

The modern pages give a mix gone wrong instead. Biddy Tarot's reversed keywords include "Imbalance, excess" and "re-alignment", and Labyrinthos has "imbalance, excess, extremes, discord, recklessness, hastiness". Tarot.com adds a pointed image: you may be "trying to force a situation into harmony before it's ready."

To choose between them, look at what is being combined. For two people or two groups, "competing interests" fits. For one person's habits, the excess reading fits better. Either way the reversed card describes a mixture that needs adjusting, and Waite never calls it a disaster.

Is Temperance a yes or no card?

Upright, Temperance answers yes to questions about patience, compromise and steady work, such as whether two schedules can be fitted together. It is a weak yes to questions about speed, because the card is about slow blending.

The three sites we looked at split. Zenithalign rates "Upright: Yes" and reversed "No". Tarot.com says that when Temperance answers a yes or no question, "the answer is NO", then softens it: "Take a break and allow yourself a moment to breathe." TarotAtlas reads the upright card as the need to "calm down and act moderately".

Our reading sits between them. Yes when the question asks for a middle way, and not yet when it asks for a fast or total result. Reversed points to no, or at least to a change of proportions before you try again.

Temperance tarot in love: couples, singles, feelings, moving on

In a relationship

Two people who live together disagree about the thermostat, one wanting 66 and the other 72. Temperance is the card of settling that without a winner. The Tarot Guide calls it "one of the best cards you can get" for a couple. Tarot.com frames it as a question: "Are you blending your lives in a way that honors both of you, or are you overcorrecting to keep the peace?"

Single

For single readers, Tarot.com says Temperance "invites you to focus on balance within yourself before seeking it in someone else." It also hints at "a new connection that feels peaceful". Our read: if someone makes everything feel urgent, look at the pace.

Temperance as feelings

Standing for what someone feels about you, the card is calm and even. Labyrinthos puts it this way: "Their emotions are rooted in patience and moderation". Our reading is that this can mean a slow pace on their side. Reversed, Labyrinthos reads "imbalance and disharmony", and says the person may feel "overwhelmed or conflicted".

Moving on

No source reads Temperance for exes specifically. For singles, The Tarot Guide warns, reversed, of "giving too much of yourself too soon" to the people you are interested in. Our reading: wait until you can measure what you are pouring into a new connection.

Astrology side of the same question: Sagittarius compatibility with every sign · Sagittarius in love.

Temperance as work and money

Temperance at work is a warning against all-or-nothing plans. A job offer that doubles your hours for a modest raise, or a project that asks you to drop everything else, goes against the card. It favors the plan you can still keep up in March.

It is also a collaboration card. Tarot.com calls it "a green light for collaboration", especially with people whose skills differ from yours. Reversed, Labyrinthos lists "work-life imbalance, all or nothing at job, rushed job".

Temperance as advice and as a person

What would change if you stopped looking for the perfect answer and looked for the right proportions? Nothing needs to be thrown out. The water only has to move from one cup to the other slowly enough not to splash.

Book T's title for the card, "The Daughter of the Reconcilers", fits a mediator, someone who can sit between two arguing sides and keep both talking, though no source says so outright. The full title reads "The Daughter of the Reconcilers: the Bringer-Forth of life".

Symbolism of the Rider–Waite–Smith card

• The winged figure. Waite writes, "I speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither male nor female."
• Chest and forehead. Waite places "the sign of the sun" on the forehead and "the square and triangle of the septenary" on the breast. Wikipedia adds that the Hebrew Tetragrammaton sits above the square and triangle.
• The two cups. The figure is "held to be pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice." The stream arcs between them and stays in the air.
• One foot on land, one in water. Waite writes, "It has one foot upon the earth and one upon waters."
• The path and the crown. A path leads up toward the horizon, and above it is a great light with a crown "seen vaguely".
• The irises. Wikipedia notes that the flowers in the Rider-Waite image are irises, which some link to the goddess Iris and the rainbow. Waite does not mention them.

Why Waite says Temperance is named "fantastically"

Waite is frank that this card breaks with tradition: "All the conventional emblems are renounced herein." He also says that "It is called Temperance fantastically", because when its rule holds in our consciousness, it "tempers, combines and harmonises the psychic and material natures." So the name labels an inner state.

The older picture is simpler. Wikipedia says the pouring figure was a standard symbol of the virtue temperance, "the dilution of wine with water", and that in the oldest Italian decks the card is numbered VI or VII. It is one of three virtue cards, with Justice and Strength. Paul Huson, Wikipedia says, suggests the figure was once Ganymede, the cup bearer of Zeus.

Temperance and Sagittarius: the card's zodiac sign

Attributions from Book T (Golden Dawn, c. 1892; printed 1912).

Book T assigns Temperance to Sagittarius, a fire sign ruled by Jupiter, with the Hebrew letter Samekh. That looks odd for a card that pours water. One way to read it: the card keeps fire in check. That is our guess; Book T does not explain the pairing.

The same papers give Sagittarius three minor cards, one per ten degrees: the Eight of Wands (Swiftness, ruled by Mercury), the Nine of Wands (Great Strength, the Moon) and the Ten of Wands (Oppression, Saturn). Read in order, Swiftness, Great Strength and Oppression look like a run that ends in overload; that is our reading, not Book T's.

The three Sagittarius cards of the minor arcana

Next Sagittarius season: the Sun enters Sagittarius on November 22, 2:23 a.m. EST and stays until December 21, 3:50 p.m. EST (2026, US Eastern time).

On 58.9% of the dates we tested (1930 to 2025), Sagittarius holds a planet or more, so you may have this card without a Sagittarius Sun. The tool below shows where yours falls.

Questions about Temperance

Next to Temperance

In the Major Arcana: Death (13) ← Temperance (14) → The Devil (15).

Sagittarius on this site: Sagittarius zodiac sign · Sagittarius rising · Mercury in Sagittarius · Venus in Sagittarius · your full birth chart.

All 22 cards with their signs and planets: tarot card meanings.

Written by The Zodiac Atlas editorial team with the help of AI and edited by a person. Quotations are from Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot and the Golden Dawn's Book T, both in the public domain; the card picture is a 1910 printing of Pamela Colman Smith's drawing for the 1909 deck. Sign dates and planet positions come from the astronomy-engine ephemeris (tropical zodiac). Tarot and astrology are symbolic traditions; they do not predict events.