How much better it is to heal than to avenge an injury! Vengeance consumes much time, and it exposes the doer to many injuries while he smarts from one; our anger always lasts longer than the hurt. How much better it is to take the opposite course and not to match fault with fault. Would anyone think that he was well balanced if he repaid a mule with kicks and a dog with biting? But you say, “Those creatures do not know that they are doing wrong.” In the first place, how unjust is he in whose eyes being a man is fatal to obtaining pardon! In the second place, if other creatures escape your anger for the very reason that they are lacking in understanding, every man who lacks understanding should hold in your eyes a like position. For what difference does it make that his other qualities are unlike those of dumb animals if he resembles them in the one quality that excuses dumb animals for every misdeed — a mind that is all darkness? “He did wrong,” you say. Well, was this the first time? Will it be the last time? You need not believe him even if he should say, “I will never do it again.” He will go on sinning and someone else will sin against him, and the whole of life will be a tossing about amid errors. Kindness must be treated with kindness. The words so often addressed to one in grief will prove most effective also for a man in anger: “Will you ever desist — or never?” If ever, how much better it is to forsake anger than to wait for anger to forsake you! Or shall this turmoil continue forever? Do you see to what life-long unrest you are dooming yourself? For what will be the life of one who is always swollen with rage? Besides, when you have successfully inflamed yourself with passion, and have repeatedly renewed the causes that spur you on, your anger will leave you of its own accord, and lapse of time will reduce its power. How much better it is that it should be vanquished by you than by itself!