And you must not suppose this, either — that anger contributes anything to greatness of soul. That is not greatness, it is a swelling; nor when disease distends the body with a mass of watery corruption is the result growth, but a pestilent excess. All whom frenzy of soul exalts to powers that are more than human believe that they breathe forth something lofty and sublime; but it rests on nothing solid, and whatever rises without a firm foundation is liable to fall. Anger has nothing on which to stand; it springs from nothing that is stable and lasting, but is a puffed-up, empty thing, as far removed from greatness of soul as foolhardiness is from bravery, arrogance from confidence, sullenness from austerity, or cruelty from sternness. The difference between a lofty and a haughty soul, I say, is great. Anger aims at nothing splendid or beautiful. On the other hand, it seems to me to show a feeble and harassed spirit, one conscious of its own weakness and oversensitive, just as the body is when it is sick and covered with sores and makes moan at the slightest touch. Thus anger is a most womanish and childish weakness. “But,” you will say, “it is found in men also.” True, for even men may have childish and womanish natures. “What then?” you cry; “do not the utterances of angry men sometimes seem to be the utterances of a great soul?” Yes, to those who do not know what true greatness is. Take the famous words: “Let them hate if only they fear,”27 which are so dread and shocking that you might know that they were written in the times of Sulla. I am not sure which wish was worse — that he should be hated or that he should be feared. “Let them hate,” quoth he; then he bethinks him that there will come a time when men will curse him, plot against him, overpower him — so what did he add? O may the gods curse him for devising so hateful a cure for hate! “Let them hate” — and then what? “If only they obey?” No! If only they approve? No! What then? “If only they fear!” On such terms I should not have wished even to be loved. You think this the utterance of a great soul? You deceive yourself; for there is nothing great in it — it is monstrous.
You need put no trust in the words of the angry, for their noise is loud and threatening, but within, their heart is very cowardly. Nor need you count as true the saying found in that most eloquent writer, Titus Livius28: “A man whose character was great rather than good.” In character there can be no such separation; it will either be good or else not great, because greatness of soul, as I conceive it, is a thing unshakable, sound to the core, uniform and strong from top to bottom — something that cannot exist in evil natures. Evil men may be terrible, turbulent, and destructive, but greatness they will never have, for its support and stay is goodness. Yet by speech, by endeavor, and by all outward display they will give the impression of greatness; they will make utterances which you may think bespeak the great soul, as in the case if Gaius Caesar.29 He grew angry at heaven because its thunder interrupted some pantomimists, whom he was more anxious to imitate than to watch, and when its thunderbolts — surely they missed their mark — affrighted his own revels, he challenged Jove to fight, even to the death, shouting in the words of Homer:
Or uplift me, or I will thee.30
What madness! He thought that not even Jove could harm him, or that he could harm even Jove. I suppose that these words of his had no little weight in arousing the minds of conspirators; for to put up with a man who could not put up with Jove seemed the limit of endurance!