“What,” you say, “is the purpose of this?” That no man may consider himself safe from anger, since it summons even those who are naturally kind and gentle into acts of cruelty and violence. As soundness of body and a careful regard for health avail nothing against the plague — for it attacks indiscriminately the weak and the strong — so calm and languid natures are in no less danger from anger than the more excitable sort, and the greater the change it works in these, the greater is their disgrace and danger. But since the first requirement is not to become angry, the second, to cease from anger, the third, to cure also the anger of others, I shall speak first of how we may avoid falling into anger, next of how we may free ourselves from it, and lastly of how we may curb an angry man — how we may calm him and restore him to sanity.
We shall forestall the possibility of anger if we repeatedly set before ourselves its many faults and shall rightly appraise it. Before our own hearts we must arraign it and convict it; we must search out its evils and drag them into the open; in order that it may be shown as it really is, it should be compared with all that is worst. Man’s avarice assembles and gathers wealth for someone who is better to use; but anger is a spender — few indulge in it without cost. How many slaves a master’s anger has driven to flight, how many to death! How much more serious was his loss from indulging in anger than was the incident which caused it! Anger brings to a father grief, to a husband divorce, to a magistrate hatred, to a candidate defeat. It is worse than wantonness, since that finds satisfaction in its own enjoyment, this in another’s pain. It exceeds spite and envy; for they desire a man to be unhappy, while anger tries to make him so; they delight in the ills that chance may bring, while it cannot wait for chance — to the man it hates it not merely wishes harm to come, but brings it. There is nothing more baleful than enmity, yet it is anger that breeds it; nothing is more deadly than war, yet in that the anger of the powerful finds its vent; nonetheless anger in the common folk or private persons is also war — war without arms and without resources. Moreover, leaving out of account the immediate consequences that will come from anger, such as losses of money, plots, and the never-ending anxiety of mutual strife, anger pays for the penalty it exacts — it renounces human nature, which incites to love, whereas it incites to hate; which bids us help, whereas it bids us injure. And besides, though its chafing originates in an excess of self-esteem and seems to be a show of spirit, it is petty and narrow-minded; for no man can fail to be inferior to the one by whom he regards himself despised. But the really great mind, the mind that has taken the true measure of itself, fails to revenge injury only because it fails to perceive it. As missiles rebound from a hard surface, and the man who strikes solid objects is hurt by the impact, so no injury whatever can cause a truly great mind to be aware of it, since the injury is more fragile than that at which it is aimed. How much more glorious it is for the mind, impervious, as it were, to any missile, to repel all insults and injuries! Revenge is the confession of a hurt; no mind is truly great that bends before injury. The man who has offended you is either stronger or weaker than you: if he is weaker, spare him; if he is stronger, spare yourself.