A great many manufacture grievances either by suspecting the untrue or by exaggerating the trivial. Anger often comes to us, but more often we go to it. It should never be invited; even when it falls upon us, it should be repulsed. No man ever says to himself, “I myself have done, or at least might have done, this very thing that now makes me angry”; no one considers the intention of the doer, but merely the deed. Yet it is to the doer that we should give thought — whether he did it intentionally or by accident, whether under compulsion or by mistake, whether he was led on by hatred or by the hope of reward, whether he was pleasing himself or lending aid to another. The age of the offender counts for something, his station for something, so that to tolerate or to submit becomes merely indulgence or deference. Let us put ourselves in the place of the man with whom we are angry; as it is, an unwarranted opinion of self makes us prone to anger, and we are unwilling to bear what we ourselves would have been willing to inflict. No one makes himself wait; yet the best cure for anger is waiting, to allow the first ardor to abate and to let the darkness that clouds the reason either subside or be less dense. Of the offenses which were driving you headlong, some an hour will abate, to say nothing of a day, some will vanish altogether; though the postponement sought shall accomplish nothing else, yet it will be evident that judgment now rules instead of anger. If ever you want to find out what a thing really is, entrust it to time; you can see nothing clearly in the midst of the billows. Plato once, when he was angry with his slave, was unable to impose delay upon himself, and, bent upon flogging him with his own hand, ordered him forthwith to take off his shirt and bare his shoulders for the blows; but afterwards realizing that he was angry he stayed his uplifted hand, and just as he was stood with his band in the air like one in the act of striking. Later, when a friend who happened to come in asked him what he was doing, he said, “I am exacting punishment from an angry man.” As if stunned he maintained that attitude, unbecoming to a philosopher, of a man in the act of venting his passion, forgetful now of the slave since he had found another whom he was more anxious to punish. He therefore denied himself all power over his own household, and once, when he was deeply provoked at some fault, he said, “Do you, Speusippus, punish this dog of a slave with a whip, for I am angry.” His reason for not striking was the very reason that would have caused another to strike. “I am angry,” said he; “I should do more than I ought, and with too much satisfaction; this slave should not be in the power of a master who is not master of himself.” Can anyone wish to entrust punishment to an angry man when even Plato denied himself this authority? Let nothing be lawful to you while you are angry. Do you ask why? Because then you wish everything to be lawful.