Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1346

Men that are proud, froward, and powerful, he values their scorn as little as their quality, and looks upon them no otherwise than as people in the excess of a fever. If a beggar worships him, or if he takes no notice of him, it is all one to him; and with a rich man he makes it the same case. Their honors and their injuries he accounts much alike; without rejoicing at the one, or grieving at the other.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 393

To refuse a good office, not so much because we do not need it, as because we would not be indebted for it, is a kind of fantastical ingratitude, and somewhat akin to that nicety of humor, on the other side, of being over-grateful; only it lies another way, and seems to be the more pardonable ingratitude of the two. Some people take it for a great instance of their good-will to be wishing their benefactors such or such a mischief; only, forsooth, that they themselves may be the happy instruments of their release.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 902

Suppose a man gives me a draught of poison and it proves not strong enough to kill me, his guilt is nevertheless for the disappointment. He that makes a pass at me is as much a murderer, though I put it by, as if he had struck me to the heart. It is the intention, not the effect, that makes the wickedness. He is a thief that has the will of killing and slaying, before his hand is dipt in blood; as it is sacrilege, the very intention of laying violent hands upon holy things.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 369

Some are too proud in the conferring of benefits; others, in the receiving of them; which is, to say the truth, intolerable. The same rule serves both sides, as in the case of a father and a son; a husband and a wife; one friend or acquaintance and another, where the duties are known and common.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 812

What joy is there in feasting and luxury; in ambition and a crowd of clients; in the arms of a mistress, or in the vanity of an unprofitable knowledge? These short and false pleasures deceive us, and, like drunkenness, revenge the jolly madness of _one_ hour with the nauseous and sad repentance of _many_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 114

There was another town besieged, and when it was upon the last pinch, two servants made their escape, and went over to the enemy: upon the Romans entering the town, and in the heat of the soldiers’ fury, these two fellows ran directly home, took their mistress out of her house, and drove her before them, telling every body how barbarously she had used them formerly, and that they would now have their revenge; when they had her without the gates, they kept her close till the danger was over; by which means they gave their mistress her life, and she gave them their freedom. This was not the action of a servile mind, to do so glorious a thing, under an appearance of so great a villainy; for if they had not passed for deserters and parricides, they could not have gained their end.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1116

when they are alone and private, all is hush and quiet: so soon as any body comes in, they are at it again; and down they throw themselves upon the bed; fall to wringing of their hands, and wishing of themselves dead; which they might have executed by themselves; but their sorrow goes off with the company. We forsake nature, and run over to the practices of the people, that never were the authors of anything that is good.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1237

But “may not an honest man then be allowed to be angry at the murder of his father, or the ravishing of his sister or daughter before his face?” No, not at all. I will defend my parents, and I will repay the injuries that are done them; but it is my piety and not my anger, that moves me to it. I will do my duty without fear or confusion, I will not rage, I will not weep; but discharge the office of a good man without forfeiting the dignity of a man. If my father be assaulted, I will endeavor to rescue him; if he be killed, I will do right to his memory; find all this, not in any transport of passion, but in honor and conscience. Neither is there any need of anger where reason does the same thing.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 557

Now, Sextius abstained upon another account, which was, that he would not have men inured to hardness of heart by the laceration and tormenting of living creatures; beside, “that Nature had sufficiently provided for the sustenance of mankind without blood.” This wrought upon me so far that I gave over eating of flesh, and in one year I made it not only easy to me but pleasant; my mind methought was more at liberty, (and I am still of the same opinion,) but I gave it over nevertheless; and the reason was this: it was imputed as a superstition to the Jews, the forbearance of some sorts of flesh, and my father brought me back again to my old custom, that I might not be thought tainted with their superstition.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 791

and not ours, but already inclining toward a new master. There is nothing our own but that which we give to ourselves, and of which we have a certain and an inexpugnable possession.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 57

His two chief favorites were Burrhus and Seneca, who were both of them excellent in their ways: Burrhus, in his care of _military_ affairs, and severity of _discipline_; Seneca for his _precepts_ and _good advice_ in the matter of _eloquence,_ and the _gentleness_ of an _honest mind_; assisting one another, in that slippery age of the prince (says Tacitus) to invite him, by the allowance of lawful pleasures, to the love of virtue.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 719

The one changes nothing, the other sticks to nothing; and which of the two is the worse, may be a question. It is many times seen, that we beg earnestly for those things, which, if they were offered us, we would refuse; and it is but just to punish this easiness of asking with an equal facility of granting. There are some things we would be thought to desire, which we are so far from desiring that we dread them. “I shall tire you,” says one, in the middle of a tedious story.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 121

He that is dead was alive; he that has lost his eyes, did see; and, whatsoever is done, cannot be rendered undone. My friend (for instance) is taken by pirates; I redeem him; and after that he falls into other pirates’ hands; his obligation to me is the same still as if he had preserved his freedom. And so, if I save a man from any misfortune, and he falls into another; if I give him a sum of money, which is afterwards taken away by thieves; it comes to the same case.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 462

I do not speak this either as a bar to the fair enjoyment of lawful pleasures, or to the gentle flatteries of reasonable expectations: but, on the contrary, I would have men to be always in good humor, provided that it arises from their own souls, and be cherished in their own breasts. Other delights are trivial; they may smooth the brow, but they do not fill and affect the heart. “True joy is a serene and sober motion;” and they are miserably out that take _laughing_ for _rejoicing_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 197

It passes in the world for a generous and magnificent saying, that “it is a shame for a man to be outdone in courtesy;” and it is worth the while to examine, both the truth of it, and the mistake. First, there can be no shame in a virtuous emulation; and, secondly, there can be no victory without crossing the cudgels, and yielding the cause.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 848

Some things trouble us more than they should, other things sooner; and some things again disorder us that ought not to trouble us at all; so that we either enlarge, or create, or anticipate our disquiets. For the first part, let it rest as a matter in controversy; for that which I account light, another perhaps will judge insupportable! One man laughs under the lash, and another whines for a fillip.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 206

This perhaps was not _pride_ in Socrates, but _craft_; for he was afraid of being forced to accept of something which might possibly have been unworthy of him; beside, that he was a man of liberty, and loath to make himself a voluntary slave.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 609

He that would live happily, must neither trust to good fortune nor submit to bad: he must stand upon his guard against all assaults; he must stick to himself, without any dependence upon other people. Where the mind is tinctured with philosophy, there is no place for grief, anxiety, or superfluous vexations. It is prepossessed with virtue to the neglect of fortune, which brings us to a degree of security not to be disturbed.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 780

What a deal of business is now made about our houses and diet, which was at first both obvious and of little expense? Luxury led the way, and we have employed our wits in the aid of our vices. First we desired superfluities, our next step was to wickedness, and, in conclusion, we delivered up our minds to our bodies, and so became slaves to our appetites, which before were our servants, and are now become our masters.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1269

And whoever considers the foulness and the brutality of this vice, must acknowledge that there is no such monster in Nature as one man raging against another, and laboring to sink that which can never be drowned but with himself for company. It renders us incapable either of discourse or of other common duties. It is of all passions the most powerful; for it makes a man that is in love to kill his mistress, the ambitious man to trample upon his honors, and the covetous to throw away his fortune.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1103

The sons of mortal parents must expect a mortal posterity—death is the end of great and small. We are born helpless, and exposed to the injuries of all creatures and of all weathers.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 596

This diversity is vicious, and the effect of a dissatisfied and uneasy mind; whereas every wise man lives by rule. This disagreement of purposes arises from hence, either that we do not propound to ourselves what we would be at; or if we do, that we do not pursue it, but pass from one thing to another; and we do not only _change_ neither but return to the very thing which we had both quitted and condemned.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1028

But to what republic shall a man betake himself? Not to Athens, where Socrates was condemned, and whence Aristotle fled, for fear he should have been condemned too, and where virtue was oppressed by envy: not to Carthage, where there was nothing but tyranny, injustice, cruelty, and ingratitude.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 948

He that has to do with an enemy in his breast, has a harder task upon him than he that is to encounter one in the field; his hazard is greater if he loses ground, and his duty is perpetual, for he has no place or time for rest. If I give way to pleasure, I must also yield to grief, to poverty, to labor, ambition, anger, until I am torn to pieces by my misfortunes and lusts. But against all this philosophy propounds a liberty, that is to say, a liberty from the service of accidents and fortune.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 956

Something or other that I had put in order is discomposed; some passion that I had subdued gets head again; and it is just with our minds as it is after a long indisposition with our bodies; we are grown so tender, that the least breath of air exposes us to a relapse.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 525

Neither are we to value ourselves upon a day, or an hour, or any one action, but upon the whole habit of the mind. Some men do one thing bravely, but not another; they will shrink at infamy, and bear up against poverty: in this case, we commend the fact, and despise the man. The soul is never in the right place until it be delivered from the cares of human affairs; we must labor and climb the hill, if we will arrive at virtue, whose seat is upon the top of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 478

She allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself. This is the felicity of human life; a felicity that can neither be corrupted nor extinguished: it inquires into the nature of the heavens, the influence of the stars; how far they operate upon our minds and bodies: which thoughts, though they do not form our manners, they do yet raise and dispose us for glorious things.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1441

“Clemency is a favorable disposition of the mind, in the matter of inflicting punishment; or, a moderation that remits somewhat of the penalty incurred; as _pardon_ is the total remission of a deserved punishment.” We must be careful not to confound _clemency_ with _pity_; for as _religion worships_ God, and _superstition profanes_ that worship; so should we distinguish betwixt _clemency_ and _pity_; _practicing_ the _one_, and _avoiding_ the _other_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 454

And the mischief is, “that the number of the multitude carries it against truth and justice;” so that we must leave the crowd, if we would be happy: for the question of a _happy life_ is not to be decided by vote: nay, so far from it, that plurality of voices is still an argument of the wrong; the common people find it easier to believe than to judge, and content themselves with what is usual, never examining whether it be good or not.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1452

The prince, in effect, is but the soul of the community, as the community is only the body of the prince; so that being merciful to others, he is tender of himself: nor is any man so mean but his master feels the loss of him, as a part of his empire: and he takes care not only of the lives of his people, but also of their reputation.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 993

The way to avoid this distraction is to contract our business and our thoughts—when the mind is once settled, a day or an age is all one to us; and the series of time, which is now our trouble will be then our delight; for he that is steadily resolved against all uncertainties, shall never be disturbed with the variety of them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 522

Virtue is free and indefatigable, and accompanied with concord and gracefulness; whereas pleasure is mean, servile, transitory, tiresome, and sickly and scarce outlives the tasting of it: it is the good of the belly, and not of the man; and only the felicity of brutes. Who does not know that fools enjoy their pleasures, and that there is great variety in the entertainments of wickedness?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 971

It is a preposterous weakness to love a man before we know him, and not to care for him after. It requires time to consider of a friendship, but the resolution once taken, entitles him to my very heart. I look upon my thoughts to be as safe in his breast as in my own: I shall, without any scruple, make him the confidant of my most secret cares and counsels.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1110

That which we call _death_ is but a pause or suspension; and, in truth, a progress to life, only our thoughts look downward upon the body, and not forward upon things to come. All things under the sun are mortal—cities—empires—and the time will come when it shall be a question where they were, and, perchance, whether ever they had a being or not. Some will be destroyed by war, others by luxury, fire, inundations, earthquakes—why should it trouble me then to die, as a forerunner of an universal dissolution? A great mind submits itself to God, and suffers willingly what the law of the universe will otherwise bring to pass upon necessity.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 284

Our great mistake is this, we are still inclined to make the most of what we give, and the least of what we receive; whereas we should do the clean contrary. “It might have been more, but he had a great many to oblige. It was as much as he could well spare; but he will make it up some other time,” etc. Nay, we should be so far from making publication of our bounties, as not to hear them so much as mentioned without sweetening the matter: as, “Alas, I owe him a great deal more than that comes to.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 122

Fortune may deprive us of the matter of a benefit, but the benefit itself remains inviolable. If the benefit resided in the matter, that which is good for one man would be so for another; whereas many times the very same thing, given to several persons, work contrary effects, even to the difference of life or death; and that which is one body’s cure proves another body’s poison.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 102

Scipio (as yet in his minority) rescued his father in a battle with Hannibal, and afterward from the practices and persecution of a powerful faction; covering him with consulary honors, and the spoils of public enemies.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1373

We are not angry at madmen, children, and fools, because they do not know what they do: and why should not imprudence have an equal privilege in other cases? If a horse kick, or a dog bite, shall a man kick or bite again? The one, it is true, is wholly void of reason, but it is also an equivalent darkness of mind that possesses the other. So long as we are among men, let us cherish humanity, and so live that no man may be either in fear or in danger of us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 173

Some favors are to be conferred in _public_, others in _private_. In _public_ the rewards of great actions; as honors, charges, or whatsoever else gives a man reputation in the world; but the good offices we do for a man in want, distress, or under reproach, these should be known only to those that have the benefit of them. Nay, not to them neither, if we can handsomely conceal it from whence the favor came; for the secrecy, in many cases, is a main part of the benefit.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 815

Nor was it any instinct of virtue that pushed on Marius, who at the head of an army was himself led on under the command of ambition: but he came at last to the deserved fate of other wicked men, and to drink himself of the same cup that he had filled to others. We impose upon our reason, when we suffer ourselves to be transported with titles; for we know that they are nothing but a more glorious sound; and so for ornaments and gildings, though there be a lustre to dazzle our eyes, our understanding tells us that it is only outside, and the matter under it is only coarse and common.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 409

And the unthankful man has nothing to say for himself all this while, for there needs neither pains or fortune for the discharge of his duty, beside the inward anxiety and torment when a man’s conscience makes him afraid of his own thoughts.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 493

It is not a thing indifferent, I know, whether a man lies at ease upon a bed, or in torment upon a wheel—and yet the former may be the worse of the two if he suffer the latter with honor, and enjoy the other with infamy. It is not the _matter_, but the _virtue_, that makes the action _good or ill_; and he that is led in triumph may be yet greater than his conqueror.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 960

Of all felicities, the most charming is that of a _firm_ and _gentle friendship_. It sweetens all our cares, dispels our sorrows, and counsels us in all extremities. Nay, if there were no other comfort in it than the bare exercise of so generous a virtue, even for that single reason, a man would not be without it. Beside, that it is a sovereign antidote against all calamities, even against the fear of death itself.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 80

There was a rumor that Subrius Flavius, in a private consultation with the centurions, had taken up this following resolution, (and that Seneca himself was no stranger to it) that is to say, that after Nero should have been slain by the help of Piso, Piso himself should have been killed too; and the empire delivered up to Seneca, as one that well deserved it, for his integrity and virtue.”

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 325

The three main points in the question of benefits are, first, a _judicious choice_ in the _object_; secondly, in the _matter_ of our benevolence; and thirdly, a grateful _felicity_ in the _manner_ of expressing it. But there are also incumbent upon the benefactor other considerations, which will deserve a place in this discourse.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 220

that it may not be boundless. Suppose a man obliges the son, does that obligation work upon the father? and why not upon the uncle too? the brother? the wife? the sister? the mother? nay, upon all that have any kindness for him? and upon all the lovers of his friends? and upon all that love them too? and so _in infinitum_. In this case we must have recourse, as is said heretofore, to the intention of the benefactor, and fix the obligation upon him unto whom the kindness was directed.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 304

There was a valiant fellow in the army, that Philip of Macedon took particular notice of, and he gave him several considerable marks of the kindness he had for him. This soldier put to sea and was cast away upon a coast where a charitable neighbor took him up half dead, carried him to the house, and there, at his own charge maintained and provided for him thirty days, until he was perfectly recovered, and, after all, furnished him over and above, with a viaticum at parting.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1

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Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 629

Wickedness, it is true, may escape the law, but not the conscience; for a private conviction is the first and the greatest punishment to offenders; so that sin plagues itself; and the fear of vengeance pursues even those that escape the stroke of it. It were ill for good men that iniquity may so easily evade the law, the judge, and the execution, if Nature had not set up torments and gibbets in the consciences of transgressors.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1417

There is so near an affinity betwixt _anger_ and _cruelty_, that many people confound them; as if _cruelty_ were only the _execution_ of _anger_ in the payment of a _revenge_: which holds in some cases, but not in others.