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Anger Management Quotes

    “Petulance is not power, it is a sign of helplessness. People may temporarily be cowed by your tantrums, but in the end they lose respect for you. They also realize they can easily undermine a person with so little self-control.”

    Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 130)

      “If you don’t wish to be a hot-head, don’t feed your habit. Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven’t been angry. I used to be angry every day, now every other day, then every third or fourth… if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God! For habit is first weakened and then obliterated. When you can say ‘I didn’t lose my temper today, or the next day, or for three or four months, but kept my cool under provocation,’ you will know you are in better health.”

      Epictetus, Discourses, via The Daily Stoic (Page 150)

        “If someone sends you an angry email but you never see it, did it actually happen? In other words, these situations require our participation, context, and categorization in order to be ‘bad.’ Our reaction is what actually decides whether harm has occurred. If we feel that we’ve been wronged and get angry, of course that’s how it will seem. If we raise our voice because we feel we’re being confronted, naturally a confrontation will ensue. But if we retain control of ourselves, we decide whether to label something good or bad.”

        Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 64)

          “If someone asks you how to write your name, would you bark out each letter? And if they get angry, would you then return the anger? Wouldn’t you rather gently spell out each letter for them? So then, remember in life that your duties are the sum of individual acts. Pay attention to each of these as you do your duty… just methodically complete your task.”

          Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 56)

            “Many successful people will try to tell you that anger is a powerful fuel in their lives. the desire to ‘prove them all wrong’ or ‘shove it in their faces’ has made many a millionaire. the anger at being called fat or stupid has created fine physical specimens and brilliant minds. The anger at being rejected has motivated many to carve their own path. But that’s shortsighted. Such stories ignore the pollution produced as a side effect and the wear and tear it put on the engine. It ignores what happens when that initial anger runs out—and how now more and more must be generated to keep the machine going (until, eventually, the only source left is anger at oneself).”

            Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 50)

              “Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on—it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance—unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”

              Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, via The Daily Stoic (Page 41)

              Eckhart Tolle Quote on Feeling Small and How To See Yourself Differently

                “If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.”

                Eckhart Tolle

                Beyond the Quote (211/365)

                A pebble on the ground will be disturbed by just about anything that crosses its path. It’s too small to stand its ground. Everything from the kicks of a person’s shoe, to the rain the gathers and runs across the ground, to the wind, even, as it gusts up in minor blows, will all affect it. It is in the nature of the pebble to be moved and affected by forces larger than it.

                Read More »Eckhart Tolle Quote on Feeling Small and How To See Yourself Differently

                  “I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats. Even ducks have taught me important spiritual lessons. Just watching them is a meditation. How peacefully they float along, at ease with themselves, totally present in the Now, dignified and perfect as only a mindless creature can be. Occasionally, however, two ducks will get into a fight—sometimes for no apparent reason, or because one duck has strayed into another’s private space. The fight usually lasts only for a few seconds, and then the ducks separate, swim off in opposite directions, and vigorously flap their wings a few times. They then continue to swim on peacefully as if the fight had never happened. When I observed that for the first time, I suddenly realized that by flapping their wings they were releasing surplus energy, thus preventing it from becoming trapped in their body and turning into negativity. This is natural wisdom, and it is easy for them because they do not have a mind that keeps the past alive unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it.”

                  Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 190)

                    “People who are driven by anger are not happy. They are not still. They get in their own way. They shorten legacies and short-circuit their goals. The Buddhists believed that anger was a kind of tiger within us, one whose claws tear at the body that houses it. To have a chance at stillness—and clear thinking and big-picture view that defines it—we need to tame that tiger before it kills us. We have to beware of desire, but conquer anger, because anger hurts not just ourselves but many other people as well.”

                    Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 155)

                      “Anger is counterproductive. The flash of rage here, an outburst at the incompetence around us there—this may generate a moment of raw motivation or even a feeling of relief, but we rarely tally up the frustration they cause down the road. Even if we apologize or the good we do outweighs the harm, damage remains—and consequences follow. The person we yelled at is now an enemy. The drawer we broke in a fit is now a constant annoyance. The high blood pressure, the overworked heart, inching us closer to the attack that will put us in the hospital or the grave.”

                      Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 154)

                        “Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we keep trying to slay them in the outer world.  And we find that we cannot.  For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart.  And it is there that we must do our work.” ~ Marianne Williamson

                          “When you are in deep distress and cannot restrain some expression of it, sit down and write out a harsh letter venting your anger. But don’t send it.” ~ Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership