Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 688

To show now that the favors or the crosses of fortune, and the accidents of sickness and of health, are neither good nor evil, God permits them indifferently both to good and evil men.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 755

To begin now with the pleasures of the palate, (which deal with us like Egyptian thieves, that strangle those they embrace), what shall we say of the luxury of Nomentanus and Apicius, that entertained their very souls in the kitchen: they have the choicest music for their ears; the most diverting spectacles for their eyes; the choicest variety of meats and drinks for their palates. What is all this, I say, but a _merry madness_?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1298

To take a farther view, now, of the miserable consequences and sanguinary effects of this hideous distemper; from hence come slaughters and poisons, wars, and desolations, the razing and burning of cities; the unpeopling of nations, and the turning of populous countries into deserts, public massacres and regicides; princes led in triumph; some murdered in their bed-chambers; others stabbed in the senate or cut off in the security of their spectacles and pleasures.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 547

The very shadow of _glory_ carries a man of _honor_ upon all dangers, to the contempt of fire and sword; and it were a shame if _right reason_ should not inspire as generous resolutions into a man of _virtue_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1226

And, why may we not as well entitle _impudence_ to _courage_, whereas the one is proud, the other brave; the one is gracious and gentle, the other rude and furious? At the same rate we may ascribe magnanimity to avarice, luxury, and ambition, which are all but splendid impotences, without measure and without foundation. There is nothing great but what is virtuous, nor indeed truly great, but what is also composed and quiet. Anger, alas!

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 15

To descend now from truth itself to our own experience have we not seen, even in our days, a most pious (and almost faultless) Prince brought to the scaffold by his own subjects? The most glorious constitution upon the face of the earth, both ecclesiastical and civil, torn to pieces and dissolved? The happiest people under the sun enslaved? Our temples sacrilegiously profaned, and a license given to all sorts of heresy and outrage?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1296

It engages us in treacheries, perpetual troubles and contentions: it alters the very nature of a man, and punishes itself in the persecution of others.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 390

Our best way is to help every thing by a fair interpretation; and wheresoever there is a doubt, to allow it the most favorable construction; for he that is exceptious at words, or looks, has a mind to pick a quarrel.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1420

It is a bestial madness to _love_ mischief; beside, that it is _womanish_ to _rage_ and _tear_. A generous beast will scorn to do it when he has any thing at his mercy. It is a vice for wolves and tigers, and no less _abominable_ to the _world_ than _dangerous_ to itself.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 694

God loves us with a masculine love, and turns us loose to injuries and indignities: he takes delight to see a brave and a good man wrestling with evil fortune, and yet keeping himself upon his legs, when the whole world is in disorder about him. And are not we ourselves delighted, to see a bold fellow press with his lance upon a boar or lion? and the constancy and resolution of the action is the grace and dignity of the spectacle.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1225

How great a wickedness is it now to indulge a violence, that does not only turn a man into a beast, but makes even the most outrageous of beasts themselves to be more dreadful and mischievous! A vice that carries along with it neither pleasure nor profit, neither honor nor security; but on the contrary, destroys us to all the comfortable and glorious purposes of our reasonable being. Some there are, that will have the root of it to be the greatness of mind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 106

Manlius, upon this, takes the tribune aside, and presenting a poniard to his breast, “Swear,” says he, “that you will let this cause fall, or you shall have this dagger in the heart of you; and now it is at your choice which way you will deliver my father.” The tribune swore and kept his word, and made a fair report of the whole matter to the council.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 582

Every man knows his duty to his country, to his friends, to his guests; and yet when he is called upon to draw his sword for the one, or to labor for the other, he finds himself distracted betwixt his apprehensions and his delights: he knows well enough the injury he does his wife in the keeping of a wench, and yet his lust overrules him: so that it is not enough to give good advice, unless we can take away that which hinders the benefit of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1253

“But in case of an exemplary and prostitute dissolution of manners, when Clodius shall be preferred, and Cicero rejected; when loyalty shall be broken upon the wheel, and treason sit triumphant upon the bench; is not this a subject to move the choler of any virtuous man?” No, by no means, virtue will never allow of the correcting of one vice by another; or that anger, which is the greater crime of the two, should presume to punish the less.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 816

I will never envy those that the people call great and happy. A sound mind is not to be shaken with a popular and vain applause; nor is it in the power of their pride to disturb the state of our happiness. An honest man is known now-a-days by the dust he raises upon the way, and it is become a point of honor to overrun people, and keep all at a distance; though he that is put out of the way may perchance be happier than he that takes it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 897

CONSTANCY OF MIND GIVES A MAN REPUTATION, AND MAKES HIM HAPPY IN DESPITE OF ALL MISFORTUNE.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 583

If a man does what he ought to do, he will never do it constantly or equally, without knowing why he does it: and if it be only chance or custom, he that does well by chance, may do ill so too. And farther, a precept may direct us what we _ought_ to do, and yet fall short in the manner of doing it: an expensive entertainment may, in one case be extravagance or gluttony, and yet a point of honor and discretion in another.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 867

Upon Diogenes’ only servant running away from him, he was told where he was, and persuaded to fetch him back again: “What,” says he, “can Manes live without Diogenes, and not Diogenes without Manes?” and so let him go.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 329

A charitable man will mend the matter: and say to himself, _Perhaps he has forgot it, perchance he could not, perhaps he will yet requite it_. A patient creditor will, of an ill paymaster, in time make a good one; an obstinate goodness overcomes an ill disposition, as a barren soil is made fruitful by care and tillage. But let a man be never so ungrateful or inhuman, he shall never destroy the satisfaction of my having done a good office.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 479

It is agreed upon all hands that “right reason is the perfection of human nature,” and wisdom only the dictate of it. The greatness that arises from it is solid and unmovable, the resolutions of wisdom being free, absolute and constant; whereas folly is never long pleased with the same thing, but still shifting of counsels and sick of itself. There can be no happiness without constancy and prudence, for a wise man is to write without a blot, and what he likes once he approves for ever.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 576

Our duty is the cure of the mind rather than the delight of it; but we have only the words of wisdom without the works; and turn philosophy into a pleasure that was given for a remedy. What can be more ridiculous than for a man to _neglect_ his _manners_ and _compose_ his _style_? We are sick and ulcerous, and must be lanced and scarified, and every man has as much business within himself as a physician in a common pestilence.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1352

In the freedom of cups, a sober man will hardly contain himself within bounds. It sticks with us extremely sometimes, that the porter will not let us in to his great master. Will any but a madman quarrel with a cur for barking, when he may pacify him with a crust? What have we to do but to keep further off, and laugh at him?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 636

What can be more reasonable than this daily review of a life that we cannot warrant for a moment? Our fate is set, and the first breath we draw is only the first motion toward our last: one cause depends upon another; and the course of all things, public and private, is but a long connection of providential appointments. There is a great variety in our lives, but all tends to the same issue.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 21

Next to the gospel itself, I do look upon it as the most sovereign remedy against the miseries of human nature: and I have ever found it so, in all the injuries and distresses of an unfortunate life. You may read more of him, if you please, in the _Appendix_, which I have here subjoined to this Preface, concerning the authority of his _writings_, and the circumstances of his _life_; as I have extracted them out of Lipsius.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1014

Company and business are great devourers of time, and our vices destroy our lives as well as our fortunes. The present is but a moment, and perpetually in flux; the time past, we call to mind when we please, and it will abide the examination and inspection.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1308

Hereupon Piso, in a rage, mounts the _tribunal_, and sentences all three to death: the one because he was _condemned_, the _other_ because it was for _his sake_ that his fellow-soldier was _condemned_, the _centurion_ for not obeying the _order_ of his _superior_. An ingenious piece of inhumanity, to contrive how to make three criminals, where effectively there were none.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 587

Precepts are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes or cautions, that we know not where to find. These salutary precepts should be our daily meditation, for they are the rules by which we ought to square our lives.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 619

We have a veneration for all the works of Nature, the heads of rivers, and the springs of medicinal waters; the horrors of groves and of caves strike us with an impression of religion and worship. To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared; all men must acknowledge that this can be nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 214

Somebody must give, that somebody may receive; and it is neither giving nor receiving, the passing of a thing from one hand to the other. What if a man should be ungrateful in the case? there is nothing lost; for he that gives it has it: and he that gives and he that receives are one and the same person. Now, properly speaking, no man can be said to bestow any thing upon himself, for he obeys his nature, that prompts every man to do himself all the good he can.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 599

Let him that is naturally choleric and impatient avoid all provocations, and those affairs also that multiply and draw on more; and those also from which there is no retreat. When we may come off at pleasure, and fairly hope to bring our matters to a period, it is well enough.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 81

It is, perhaps, one of the most pernicious errors of a rash and inconsiderate life, the common ignorance of the world in the matter of exchanging _benefits_. And this arises from a mistake, partly in the person that we would oblige, and partly in the thing itself.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 509

If a man does not live up to his own rules, it is something yet to have virtuous meditations and good purposes, even without acting; it is generous, the very adventure of being good, and the bare proposal of an eminent course of life, though beyond the force of human frailty to accomplish. There is something of honor yet in the miscarriage; nay, in the naked contemplation of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1484

This I speak in case of an affront from those that are below us; but he that of an equal has made any man his inferior, has his revenge in the bringing of him down. A _prince_ has been _killed_ by a _servant_, destroyed by a serpent: but whosoever preserves a man must be greater than the person that he preserves.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 736

To stand unshaken in such a calamity is hardly to be expected, and our wonder can but be equal to our grief. Let this accident teach us to provide against all possibilities that fall within the power of fortune. All external things are under her dominion: one while she calls our hands to her assistance; another while she contents herself with her own force, and destroys us with mischiefs of which we cannot find the author.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 186

You have obliged me in my servant, but wounded me in my brother; you have saved my son, but have destroyed my father; in this instance, I will allow as much as piety, and justice, and good nature, will bear; but I am not willing to set an injury against a benefit.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 839

that prince that may not pass the hand of a common hangman? That which is one man’s fortune may be another’s; but the foresight of calamities to come breaks the violence of them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 953

If an enemy were at our heels, what haste should we make!—but death is so, and yet we never mind it. There is no venturing of tender and easy natures among the people, for it is odds that they will go over to the major party. It would, perhaps, shake the constancy of Socrates, Cato, Lælius, or any of us all, even when our resolutions are at the height, to stand the shock of vice that presses upon us with a kind of public authority.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 25

His third adversary is Agellius, who falls upon him for his style, and a kind of tinkling in his sentences, but yet commends him for his piety and good counsels. On the other side, Columela calls him _a man of excellent wit and learning_; Pliny, _the prince of erudition;_ Tacitus gives him the character of _a wise man, and a fit tutor for a prince_; Dio reports him to have been _the greatest man of his age_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 979

It is usual with princes to reproach the living by commending the dead, and to praise those people for speaking truth from whom there is no longer any danger of hearing it. This is Augustus’s case: he was forced to banish his daughter Julia for her common and prostituted impudence; and still upon fresh informations, he was often heard to say, “If Agrippa or Mecenas had been now alive, this would never have been.” But yet where the fault lay may be a question; for perchance it was his own, that had rather complain for the want of them than seek for others as good. The Roman losses by war and by fire, Augustus could quickly supply and repair; but for the loss of two friends he lamented his whole life after.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 501

There is so wonderful a grace and authority in it that even the worst of men approve it, and set up for the reputation of being accounted virtuous themselves. They covet the fruit indeed, and the profit of wickedness; but they hate and are ashamed of the imputation of it. It is by an impression of Nature that all men have a reverence for virtue—they know it and they have a respect for it though they do not practice it—nay, for the countenance of their very _wickedness_, they miscall it _virtue_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 850

And so for banishment, which to one man is so grievous, and yet to another is no more than a bare change of place: a thing that we do every day for our health, pleasure, nay, and upon the account even of common business.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1505

This moderation of Augustus was the excellency of his mature age; for in his youth he was passionate and sudden; and he did many things which afterward he looked back upon with trouble: after the battle of Actium, so many navies broken in Sicily, both _Roman_ and _strangers_: the _Perusian altars_, where 300 _lives_ were _sacrificed_ to the _ghost_ of Julius; his frequent _proscriptions_, and other severities; his _temperance_ at last seemed to be little more than a _weary cruelty_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 152

However, let it not be improper, as arms to a woman, books to a clown, toys to a philosopher: I will not give to any man that which he cannot receive, as if I threw a ball to a man without hands; but I will make a _return_, though he cannot receive it; for my business is not to oblige him, but to free myself: nor anything that may reproach a man of his vice or infirmity; as false dice to a cheat; spectacles to a man that is blind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 151

If it be lasting and durable, so much the better; as plate, rather than money; statues than apparel; for it will serve as a monitor to mind the receiver of the obligation, which the presenter cannot so handsomely do.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1244

Some people are of opinion that anger inflames and animates the soldier; that it is a spur to bold and arduous undertakings; and that it were better to moderate than to wholly suppress it, for fear of dissolving the spirit and force of the mind. To this I answer, that virtue does not need the help of vice; but where there is any ardor of mind necessary, we may rouse ourselves, and be more or less brisk and vigorous as there is occasion: but all without anger still.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1086

It is childish to go out of the world groaning and wailing as we came into it. Our bodies must be thrown away, as the secundine that wraps up the infant, the other being only the covering of the soul; we shall then discover the secrets of Nature; the darkness shall be discussed, and our souls irradiated with light and glory: a glory without a shadow; a glory that shall surround us, and from whence we shall look down and see day and night beneath us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1290

To contend with our superior is folly and madness: with our equals, it is doubtful and dangerous: and with our inferiors, it is base. For does any man know but that he that is now our enemy may come hereafter to be our friend, over and above the reputation of clemency and good nature? And what can be more honorable or comfortable, than to exchange a feud for a friendship?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 765

They that deliver themselves up to luxury are still either tormented with too little, or oppressed with too much; and equally miserable, by being either deserted or overwhelmed: they are like men in a dangerous sea; one while cast a-dry upon a rock, and another while swallowed up in a whirlpool; and all this from the mistake of not distinguishing good from evil.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 760

What is it that we plow the seas for; or arm ourselves against men and beasts? To what end do we toil, and labor, and pile bags upon bags? We may enlarge our fortunes, but we cannot our bodies; so that it does but spill and run over, whatsoever we take more than we can hold. Our forefathers (by the force of whose virtues we are now supported in our vices) lived every jot as well as we, when they provided and dressed their own meat with their own hands; lodged upon the ground, and were not as yet come to the vanity of gold and gems; when they swore by their earthen gods, and kept their oath, though they died for it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 127

One man does me good by mistake; another ignorantly; a third upon force: but none of these cases do I take to be an obligation; for they were neither directed to me, nor was there any kindness of intention; we do not thank the seas for the advantages we receive by navigation; or the rivers with supplying us with fish and flowing of our grounds; we do not thank the trees either for their fruits or shades, or the winds for a fair gale; and what is the difference betwixt a reasonable creature that does not know and an inanimate that cannot?