Anger

Anger is a common emotional response to real or imagined threats or harm to oneself or others, characterized by a desire, whether internalized or expressed, to engage in aggressive retaliation.

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• In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
  • Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, chapter 1. (Second novel of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series).

• Iratus semplar plus putat posse facere quam possit.
  • The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can.
  • Albertano of Brescia, Liber Consolations

• Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
  • Francis Bacon, Apophthegms (1679); first published in the Remains, No, IV (stated to have been made by Queen Elizabeth to a Sir Edward, last name not reported).

• Dangers by being despised grow great.
  • Edmund Burke, speech on the Petition of the Unitarians, 1792

• Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
  • Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter (1793), line 12.

• Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd. / Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
  • William Congreve, The Mourning Bride

• Anger is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind.
  • Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Prophane State (1642), book III, 8, "Anger".

• Ira furor brevis est: animum rege: qui nisi paret imperat.
  • Anger is momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.
  • Horace, Epistles, I. 2. 62.

• When you are angry, it means you, yourself are unhappy. Even if you are wronged, you are still making yourself unhappy if you feel anger.
  • Michio Kushi (1926), Spiritual Journey (1994), p. 41

• From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
  • Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; said by Captain Ahab to Moby-Dick.

• Never anger made good guard for itself.
  • William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act IV, scene 1, line 9.

• If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye,
  I can tell who should down.
  • William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act I, scene 2, line 226.

• Being once chaf'd, he cannot
  Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks
  What's in his heart.
  • William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act III, scene 3, line 27.

• Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
  And so shall starve with feeding.
  • William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act IV, scene 2, line 50.

• What, drunk with choler?
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act I, scene 3, line 129.

• Anger is like
  A full-hot horse; who being allowed his way,
  Self-mettle tires him.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act I, scene 1, line 132.

• What sudden anger's this? How have I reap'd it?
  He parted frowning from me, as if ruin
  Leap'd from his eyes: So looks the chafed lion
  Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him;
  Then makes him nothing.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act III, scene 2, line 204.

• You are yoked with a lamb,
  That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
  Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark.
  And straight is cold again.
  • William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act IV, scene 3, line 109.

• Touch me with noble anger!
  And let not women's weapons, water drops,
  Stain my man's cheeks.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act II, scene 4, line 279.

• The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act I, scene 2, line 19.

• It engenders choler, planteth anger;
  And better 'twere that both of us did fast,
  Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
  Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.
  • William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1593-94), Act IV, scene 1, line 175.

• Come not within the measure of my wrath.
  • William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590s), Act V, scene 4, line 127.

• When you're pushed, killing is easy as breathing.
  • Art Monterastelli and Sylvester Stallone, Rambo (2008).

• There are things that must evoke our anger to show we care. It is what we do with that anger. If we direct that energy we can use it positively or destructively.
  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Daily Express, 29th October 2008

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 27-28.

• I was angry with my friend:
  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
  I was angry with my foe;
  I told it not, my wrath did grow.
  • William Blake, Christian Forbearance.

• Alas! they had been friends in youth;
  But whispering tongues can poison truth,
  And constancy lives in realms above;
  And life is thorny, and youth is vain;
  And to be wrothe with one we love
  Doth work like madness in the brain.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel (c. 1797-1801, published 1816), Part II.

• Beware the fury of a patient man.
  • John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Part I, line 1005.

• A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain
  To feel much anger.
  • George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868) (1868), Book I.

• Anger seeks its prey,—
  Something to tear with sharp-edged tooth and claw,
  Likes not to go off hungry, leaving Love
  To feast on milk and honeycomb at will.
  • George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868) (1868), Book I.

• Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
  • Ephesians, IV. 26.

• Craignez la colère de la colombe.
  • Beware the anger of the dove.
  • French Proverb. See Quitard's Dictionary of Proverbs.

• Anger, which, far sweeter than trickling drops of honey, rises in the bosom of a man like smoke.
  • Homer, The Iliad, XVIII, 108.

• Fœnum habet in cornu.
  • He has hay on his horns.
  • Horace, Satires, I. 4. 34.

• Trahit ipse furoris
  Impetus, et visum est lenti quæsisse nocentem.
  • They are borne along by the violence of their rage, and think it is a waste of time to ask who are guilty.
  • Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, II, 109.

• Nemo me impune lacessit.
  • No man provokes me with impunity.
  • Motto of the Order of the Thistle.

• Quamlibet infirmas adjuvat ira manus.
  • Anger assists hands however weak.
  • Ovid, Amorum (16 BC), I. 7. 66.

• Ut fragilis glacies interit ira mora.
  • Like fragile ice anger passes away in time.
  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, I. 374.

• Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;
  Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 582.

• He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
  • Proverbs, XVI. 32.

• Anger wishes that all mankind had only one neck; love, that it had only one heart; grief, two tear-glands; and pride, two bent knees.
  • Jean Paul Richter, Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces, Chapter VI.

• Dem tauben Grimm, der keinen Führer hört.
  • Deaf rage that hears no leader.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Wallenstein's Tod, III. 20. 16.

• No pale gradations quench his ray,
  No twilight dews his wrath allay.
  • Walter Scott, Rokeby, Canto VI, Stanza 21.

• Quamvis tegatur proditur vultu furor.
  • Anger, though concealed, is betrayed by the countenance.
  • Seneca, Hippolytus, CCCLXIII.

• Ne frena animo permitte calenti;
  Da spatium, tenuemque moram; male cuncta ministrat
  Impetus.
  • Give not reins to your inflamed passions; take time and a little delay; impetuosity manages all things badly.
  • Statius, Thebais, X, 703.

• Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
  • Jonathan Swift, letter to Bolingbroke, March 21, 1729.

• Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia.
  • Patience provoked often turns to fury.
  • Syrus, Maxims, 178.

• Senseless, and deformed,
  Convulsive Anger storms at large; or pale,
  And silent, settles into fell revenge.
  • James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring (1728), line 28.

• Furor arma ministrat.
  • Their rage supplies them with weapons.
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I, 150.

• Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ.
  • Can heavenly minds such anger entertain?
  • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I, 11.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 13-14.

• The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence.
  • Charles Caleb Colton.

• The proud man hath no God; the envious man hath no neighbor; the angry man hath not himself.
  • Joseph Hall.

• He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.
  • Johann Kaspar Lavater.

• There was a man here last night — you needn't be afraid that I shall mention his name — who said that his will was given up to God, and who got mad because the omnibus was full, and he had to walk a mile to his lodgings.
  • Dwight L. Moody.

• When I had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance to anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedemonians, never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them.
  • Plutarch.

• An unsanctified temper is a fruitful source of error, and a mighty impediment to truth.
  • Elias Lyman Magoon.

• Our passions are like convulsion fits, which make us stronger for the time, but leave us weaker forever after.
  • Jonathan Swift.

• If anger proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury; if from a small cause, it is peevishness; and so is always either terrible or ridiculous.
  • Jeremy Taylor.