#33: 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.
[94]
Struggle against yourself; if [you want] to conquer anger, you can’t allow it to conquer you.
[95]
[L]et’s change all its [i.e. anger] manifestations to their opposite: relax the face, soften the voice, slow the step; bit by bit, inner feelings will conform to outer signs.
[96]
In Socrates’ case, it was a mark of his anger if he lowered his voice and spoke more sparingly; it seemed as though he were blocking himself.
His friends then used to grab him and admonish him, and this reproach for his hidden anger was not unwelcome to him. Shouldn’t he have been more pleased that, though many understood his rage, no one felt it? They would had felt it, if he had not given his friends the right to chastise him – just as he assumed that right over them…
We should ask each of our closest friends to take to most liberty in opposing us at the very moment when we are the least tolerant of that liberty, and not to consent to our anger…