“But of course there is some pleasure in anger,” you say, “and it is sweet to return a smart.” Not at all; for it is not honorable, as in acts of kindness to requite benefits with benefits, so to requite injuries with injuries. In the one case it is shameful to be outdone, in the other not to be outdone. “Revenge” is an inhuman word and yet one accepted as legitimate, and “retaliation” is not much different except in rank; the man who returns a smart commits merely the more pardonable sin.32 Once when Marcus Cato was in the public bath, a certain man, not knowing him, struck him unwittingly; for who would knowingly have done injury to that great man? Later, when the man was making apology, Cato said, “I do not recall that I received a blow.” It was better, he thought, to ignore the incident than to resent it. “Then the fellow,” you ask, “got no punishment for such an act of rudeness?” No, but much good — he began to know Cato. Only a great soul can be superior to injury; the most humiliating kind of revenge is to have it appear that the man was not worth taking revenge upon. Many have taken slight injuries too deeply to heart in the act of revenging them. He is a great and noble man who acts as does the lordly wild beast that listens unconcernedly to the baying of tiny dogs.