Posted 3:38 PM by Robert

Books of Anger

David Brooks scribes a fine column on the rising pile of political anger - especially furious books like Paul Krugman's "Great Unraveling."

So it seems a good time to review some of the better phrased comments on anger and where it leads. For example Anger blows out the lamp of the mind (Robert Green Ingersol), Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit (Epictetus) and Anger is seldom without argument but seldom with a good one (Lord Halifax) each warrants meditation for at least a day or two by Herr Doktorprofessor and others.

Instead, Herr Doktorprofessor seems determined to blow out other people's lamps, too. Here's a collection of relevant aphorisms:


Anger rest in the bosom of fools.
--Bible

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Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
- Benjamin Franklin

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The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.
--Barbara De Angelis

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Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
- Elizabeth I of England [Francis Bacon]

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Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding.
- Mahatma Gandhi

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The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
- Seneca

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An angry man opens his mouth and shuts up his eyes.
- Cato the Elder

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Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
- Pythagoras

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Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.
- Robert Green Ingersoll

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To rule one's anger is well; to prevent it is still better.
- Tryon Edwards

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Keep cool; anger is not an argument.
- Daniel Webster

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Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.
- William Rounseville Alger

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Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.
- Horace

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The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.
- Walter S. Landor

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When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry.
- Thomas C. Haliburton

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Wise anger is like fire from a flint: there is great ado to get it out; and when it does come, it is out again immediately.
- Matthew Henry

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Anybody can become angry--that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
- Aristotle

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When angry count four; when very angry, swear.
- Mark Twain

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Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.
- Epictetus

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Anger is seldom without argument but seldom with a good one.
- Lord Halifax

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An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason.
- Publilius Syrus

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The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves. We injure our own cause in the opinion of the world when we too passionately defend it.
- Charles Caleb Colton

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Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.
- Phyllis Diller

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There is not in nature, a thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly, as doth intemperate anger.
--John Webster

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As the whirlwind in its fury teareth up trees, and deformeth the face of nature, or as an earthquake in its convulsions overturneth whole cities; so the rage of an angry man throweth mischief around him.
--Akhenaton

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Indulge not thyself in the passion of anger; it is whetting a sword to wound thine own breast, or murder thy friend.
--Akhenaton

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It takes two flints to make a fire.
--Louisa May Alcott

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I used to store my anger and it affected my play. Now I get it out. I'm never rude to my playing partner. I'm very focused on the ball. Then it's over.
--Helen Alfredsson

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Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.
--William R. Alger

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Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
--Maya Angelou

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Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.
--Marcus Antonius

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We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.
--Aristotle

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How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
--Marcus Aurelius

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When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man's life.
--Marcus Aurelius

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Rage cannot be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.
--James Baldwin

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If a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. The flame is not wring, but the coals are.
--Henry Ward Beecher

MORE: (from an astute reader)

Ah would that from earth and Heaven all strife were for ever flung,
And wrath, that makes even a wise man mad! Upon the tongue
Its taste is sweeter than honey, that drips from the comb - but then
Like a smother of blinding smoke it mounts in the hearts of men.
-- Homer, Iliad, xviii, 109.

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... for behold in his fury he doeth despite to the senseless clay.
-- Homer, Iliad, xxiv, 54.

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Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.
-- Sirach 27: 30

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Give up your anger, and forsake wrath;
be not vexed, it will only harm you.
-- Psalm 37:8