ANGER QUOTES
quotations about anger
Anger is a choice, as well as a habit. It is a learned reaction to frustration, in which you behave in ways that you would rather not. In fact, severe anger is a form of insanity. You are insane whenever you are not in control of your behavior. Therefore, when you are angry and out of control, you are temporarily insane.
WAYNE W. DYER
Your Erroneous Zones
Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight.
PHYLLIS DILLER
Housekeeping Hints
Anger glances in the breasts of wise men; but rests in the bosom of fools.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.
PROVERBS 29:11
Anger is a condition in which the tongue works faster than the mind.
ANONYMOUS
Whate'ers begun in anger ends in shame.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734
Anger is fuel. We feel it and we want to do something. Hit someone, break something, throw a fit, smash a fist into the wall, tell those bastards. But we are nice people, and what we do with our anger is stuff it, deny it, bury it, block it, hide it, lie about it, medicate it, muffle it, ignore it. We do everything but listen to it. Anger is meant to be listened to. Anger is a voice, a shout, a plea, a demand.... We are meant to use anger as a fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us.
JULIA CAMERON
The Artist's Way
People with a healthy attitude concerning anger understand the difference between constructive and destructive anger. Anger is constructive when your anger expression affirms and acknowledges your integrity and boundaries without intending to threaten or violate another person's integrity or boundaries. Destructive anger is when your expression of anger is a defensive and rigid attempt to protect your vulnerability and boundaries by intending to threaten or violate another's integrity and boundaries (whether the intention is conscious or not). If you have a healthy relationship with anger, you have learned how to transform anger from a weapon that wounds others and yourself to a tool that promotes understanding and healthy change in relationships. Anger is most constructive when it is used to solve a problem, rather than merely to prove a point or vent your feelings.
BEVERLY ENGEL
Honor Your Anger
At the moment you become angry, you tend to believe that your misery has been created by another person. You blame him or her for all your suffering. But by looking deeply, you may realize that the seed of anger in you is the main cause of your suffering. Many other people, confronted with the same situation, would not get angry like you. They hear the same words, they see the same situation, and yet they are able to stay calm and not be carried away. Why do you get angry so easily? You may get angry very easily because your seed of anger is too strong. And because you have not practiced the methods for taking good care of your anger, the seed of anger has been watered too often in the past.
THICH NHAT HANH
Anger
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
MALCOLM X
Malcolm X Speaks
Anger is never without a Reason, but seldom with a good One.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1753
Anger is a fuel. You need fuel to launch a rocket. But if all you have is fuel without any complex internal mechanism directing it, you don't have a rocket. You have a bomb.
GIL SCHWARTZ
Men's Health, July 2006
It's important for people to keep in mind that while anger is a feeling that everybody has, aggression is a choice.
CAROLE D. STOVALL
Jet Magazine, May 1, 2000
Anger is not the opposite of love, for the opposite of love is indifference. To be angry is to care tremendously. It is a signal that your caring extends beyond polite conversation, and that you are willing to risk a confrontation to share how you feel.
DORIS MORELAND JONES
God's Gift of Anger
Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
MITCH ALBOM
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
All angry persons are to be treated, by the prudent, as children.
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Sir Charles Grandison
People who habitually yield to anger are likely to acquire an erroneous notion of their own power. For there is no doubt that in anger there is a good deal of power. It often gets what it wants, like every form of self-assertion and tyranny. And what it loses may not be apparent on the surface. Nevertheless what it loses may be so vast as to be incalculable. For, great as the power of anger may be in some cases, it is pitifully small compared with the power of its opposite quality, self-control. And just as self-control may often seem to be weakness, anger may seem to be strength. The truth is, of course, that real strength lies not in anger, but in the control of anger.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Anger"
Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling -- I don't think it's any of that -- it's helpless ... it's absence of control -- and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that -- I have no use for it whatsoever.
TONI MORRISON
interview with Don Swaim, 1987
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
PROVERBS 16:32
When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
MARK TWAIN
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson