“Wickedness,” it is said, “must be eliminated from the scheme of nature, if you would eliminate anger; neither, however, is possible.” In the first place, one can avoid being cold although in the scheme of nature it is winter, and one can avoid being hot although the hot months are here. A man may either be protected against the inclemency of the season by a favorable place of residence, or he may by physical endurance subdue the sensation of both heat and cold. In the second place, reverse12 this statement: A man must banish virtue from his heart before he can admit wrath, since vices do not consort with virtues, and a man can no more be both angry and good at the same time than he can be sick and well. “But it is not possible,” you say, “to banish anger altogether from the heart, nor does the nature of man permit it.” Yet nothing is so hard and difficult that it cannot be conquered by the human intellect and be brought through persistent study into intimate acquaintance, and there are no passions so fierce and self-willed that they cannot be subjugated by discipline. Whatever command the mind gives to itself holds its ground. Some have reached the point of never smiling, some have cut themselves off from wine, others from sexual pleasure, others from every kind of drink; another, satisfied by short sleep, prolongs his waking hours unwearied; some have learned to run on very small and slanting ropes, to carry huge burdens that are scarcely within the compass of human strength, to dive to unmeasured depths and to endure the sea without any drawing of breath. There are a thousand other instances to show that persistence surmounts every obstacle and that nothing is really difficult which the mind enjoins itself to endure. The men I mentioned a little while ago had either no reward for their unflagging zeal or none worthy of it — for what glory does he attain who has trained himself to walk a tightrope, to carry a huge load upon his shoulders, to withhold his eyes from sleep, to penetrate to the bottom of the sea? — and yet by effort they attained the end for which they worked although the remuneration was not great. Shall we, then, not summon ourselves to endurance when so great a reward awaits us — the unbroken calm of the happy soul? How great a blessing to escape anger, the greatest of all ills, and along with it madness, ferocity, cruelty, rage, and the other passions that attend anger!