Wisdom across time

“Deceitfulness, and arrogance, and pride, / Quickness to anger, harsh and evil speech, / And ignorance, to its own darkness blind,-- / These be the signs, My Prince! of him whose birth / Is fated for the regions of the vile.”

Krishna contrasts the divine qualities with the marks of a person bound toward degradation.

“But if a man shall learn, Even while he lives and bears his body's chain, To master lust and anger, he is blest! He is the Yukta; he hath happiness, Contentment, light, within:”

Krishna promises that mastery over passion and anger brings blessedness even in this life.

“He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver; other people are but holding the reins.”

“Do not speak harshly to anybody; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful, blows for blows will touch thee.”

“He did not transfer his anger; he did not repeat a fault.”

Confucius praises his most beloved disciple Yen Hui as a model of learning and self-discipline.

“When he is angry, he thinks of the difficulties (his anger may involve him in). When he sees gain to be got, he thinks of righteousness.”

Part of Confucius's list of nine things the superior man keeps in thoughtful consideration.

“Betimes in the morning say to thyself, This day I shalt have to do with an idle curious man, with an unthankful man, a railer, a crafty, false, or an envious man; an unsociable uncharitable man. All these ill qualities have happened unto them, through ignorance of that which is truly good and truly bad. But I that unde…”

Aurelius instructs himself to prepare each morning for difficult people by remembering their ignorance and his kinship with them.

“When thou art offended with any man's transgression, presently reflect upon thyself; and consider what thou thyself art guilty of in the same kind. For this if thou shalt call to mind, thou shalt soon forget thine anger; especially when at the same time this also shall concur in thy thoughts, that he was constrained by…”

“Do not try to appease your friend during his hour of anger; Nor comfort him at the hour while his dead still lies before him; Nor question him at the hour of his vow; Nor strive to see him in the hour of his disgrace.”

“There are four kinds of temperaments: Easy to become angry, and easy to be appeased: his gain disappears in his loss; Hard to become angry, and hard to be appeased: his loss disappears in his gain; Hard to become angry and easy to be appeased: a pious person; Easy to become angry and hard to be appeased: a wicked perso…”

“Turn aside evil with that which is better: we best know what they utter against thee.”

God instructs the Prophet on how to respond to those who speak ill of him.

“And Dhoulnoun; when he went on his way in anger, and thought that we had no power over him. But in the darkness he cried "There is no God but thou: Glory be unto Thee! Verily, I have been one of the evil doers:" So we heard him and rescued him from misery: for thus rescue we the faithful.”

Jonah, after fleeing his mission in anger, repents in darkness and is saved — illustrating that sincere acknowledgment of fault opens the way to deliverance.

“This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.”

“REVENGE is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office.”

“Who would live amidst perpetual wrangling, and scolding, and mutual reproaches? The roughness and harshness of these emotions disturb and displease us: we suffer by contagion and sympathy; nor can we remain indifferent spectators, even though certain that no pernicious consequences would ever follow from such angry pas…”

Hume observes that anger and discord are unpleasant not merely because of their harmful consequences but because we naturally feel them through sympathy.

“The furious behaviour of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us against himself than against his enemies. As we are unacquainted with his provocation, we cannot bring his case home to ourselves, nor conceive anything like the passions which it excites.”

Smith observes that anger, unlike grief, tends to alienate rather than attract sympathy when its cause is unknown.

“In contention, the best men would lose their characteristic virtues,—the fearless apostle Paul, his devotion to truth; the gentle disciple John, his loving charity.”

An editorial note explaining Emerson's argument that even great souls are diminished when drawn into direct contention.

“Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man over the body and soul of another man, without brutal chastisement and enormous cruelty.”

Douglass states a universal principle: the structure of domination itself requires cruelty, regardless of the character of the individual master.

“We should be much less ready to lose our temper over an insult,--which, in the strict sense of the word, means that we have not been treated with respect,--if, on the one hand, we have not such an exaggerated estimate of our value and dignity--that is to say, if we were not so immensely proud of ourselves; and, on the…”

“We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires, moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and that, on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life; in a word, we must bear and forbear--and if we fail to observe…”

“Nothing annihilates an inhibition as irresistibly as anger does it; for, as Moltke says of war, destruction pure and simple is its essence. This is what makes it so invaluable an ally of every other passion. The sweetest delights are trampled on with a ferocious pleasure the moment they offer themselves as checks to a…”

James analyzes the psychological power of anger and earnestness to overcome hesitation and moral inertia.

“Conscious of his impotence, and pessimistic, he often becomes bitter and vindictive; and his religion, instead of a worship, is a complaint and a curse, a wail rather than a hope, a sneer rather than a faith.”

Du Bois describes how sustained injustice corrodes the inner spiritual life of those who suffer it.

“Prejudice always obscures the truth.”

After hours of argument, the film names the thing that has actually been driving the vote, and how hard it is to see from inside.

Written by Reginald Rose.

“Never tell anybody outside the family what you're thinking again.”

Vito rebukes Sonny for revealing his position during a negotiation and giving an adversary leverage over the family.

Written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola.

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

The film's Gandhi answers the logic of proportionate revenge by following it to its end.

Written by John Briley.

“I will not fight you, Father.”

With the Emperor urging him to strike in anger, Luke refuses to fight his father, the fight the Emperor needs him to have.

Written by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas.

“But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.”

A man who has recited a violent verse for years as a preamble to killing reconsiders, out loud, which figure in it he actually is.

Written by Quentin Tarantino.

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Yoda traces a sequence in which fear is not the opposite of courage but the first step on a road that ends in harm.

Written by George Lucas.