You will be angry first with this man, then with that one; first with slaves, then with freedmen; first with parents, then with children; first with acquaintances, then with strangers; for there are causes enough everywhere unless the mind enters to intercede. Rage will sweep you hither and yon, this way and that, and your madness will be prolonged by new provocations that constantly arise. Tell me, unhappy man, will you ever find time to love? What precious time you are wasting upon an evil thing! How much better would it be at this present moment to be gaining friends, reconciling enemies, serving the state, devoting effort to private affairs, than to be casting about to see what evil you can do to some man, what wound you may deal to his position, his estate, or his person, although you cannot attain this without struggle and danger even if your adversary be an inferior! You may take him in chains and at your pleasure expose him to every test of endurance; but too great violence in the striker has often dislocated a joint, or left a sinew fastened in the very teeth it had broken. Anger has left many a man crippled, many disabled, even when it has found its victim submissive. Besides, there lives no creature so weak that it will die without trying to harm its destroyer; sometimes pain, sometimes a mishap, makes the weak a match for the strongest. And is it not true that most of the things that make us angry offend us more than they harm us? But it makes a great difference whether a man thwarts my wish or fails to further it, whether he robs me or merely fails to give. And yet we attach the same value to both — whether a man deprives us of something or merely withholds it, whether he shatters our hope or defers it, whether he acts against us or in his own interest, whether from love of another or from hatred of us. Some men, indeed, have not only just, but even honorable reasons for opposing us. One is protecting his father, another his brother, another his country, another his friend. Nevertheless, we do not excuse these for doing the very thing which we should blame them for not doing; nay, more, though it is quite unbelievable, we often think well of an act, but ill of its doer. But, in very truth, a great and just man honors those of his foes who are bravest and are most stubborn in the defense of the liberty and the safety of their country, and prays that fortune may grant him such men as fellow-citizens, such as fellow-soldiers.