#21: On Anger (De Ira)
Quotes that resonate, from ‘How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management’ by Seneca, selected, translated and introduced by James Romm.
[58]
No face produced by any emotion is more disturbed than anger’s: it mars the loveliest visages, contorts the most serene expressions.
[59]
As Sextius says, it has often been useful to angry people to look in a mirror. The greatest transformation in themselves has disturbed them; they will have no longer recognized themselves, yet how little or their true deformity was displayed in the image reflected by the mirror!
If the mind could be revealed and could shine out in some concrete form, it would astonish those who saw it – black, spotted, roiling, twisted, swollen. As things are, its ugliness is so extreme, as it seeps through bones and flesh and so many things in its path; what would it look like if laid bare?
But you may not believe that anyone has been frightened out of his angry state by a mirror? Why is that? Simple: whoever comes to a mirror to change himself has already changed…