Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 477

She clears our minds of dross and vanity; she raises up our thoughts to heaven, and carries them down to hell: she discourses of the nature of the soul, the powers and faculties of it; the first principles of things; the order of Providence: she exalts us from things corporeal to things incorporeal, and retrieves the truth of all: she searches nature, gives laws to life; and tells us, “That it is not enough to God, unless we obey him:” she looks upon all accidents as acts of Providence: sets a true value upon things; delivers us from false opinions, and condemns all pleasures that are attended with repentance.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 455

By the _common people_ is intended _the man of title_ as well as the _clouted shoe_: for I do not distinguish them by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man. Worldly felicity, I know, makes the head giddy; but if ever a man comes to himself again, he will confess, that “whatsoever he has done, he wishes undone;” and that “the things he feared were better than those he prayed for.”

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 919

It is not in our contentions with Fortune as in those of the theatre, where we may throw down our arms, and pray for quarter; but here we must die firm and resolute.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1161

Are there not three things grievous in sickness, the fear of death, bodily pain, and the intermission of our pleasures? the first is to be imputed to nature, not to the disease; for we do not die because we are sick, but because we live. Nay, sickness itself has preserved many a man from dying.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1154

In the case of pain or sickness, it is only the body that is affected; it may take off the speed of a footman, or bind the hands of a cobbler, but the mind is still at liberty to hear, learn, teach, advise, and to do other good offices. It is an example of public benefit, a man that is in pain and patient.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 334

The plow goes on after a barren year: and while the ashes are yet warm, we raise a new house upon the ruins of a former. What obligations can be greater than those which children receive from their parents? and yet should we give them over in their infancy, it were all to no purpose. Benefits, like grain, must be followed from the seed to the harvest. I will not so much as leave any place for ingratitude.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 235

The school of Epicurus, I am sure, will never swallow this doctrine: (that effeminate tribe of lazy and voluptuous philosophers;) they will tell you, that virtue is but the servant and vassal of pleasure. “No,” says Epicurus, “I am not for pleasure neither without virtue.” But, why then for pleasure, say I, _before_ virtue? Not that the stress of the controversy lies upon the _order_ only; for the _power_ of it, as well as the _dignity_, is now under debate.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 727

But we had better yet be contemned for simplicity than lie perpetually upon the torture of a counterfeit; provided that care be taken not to confound simplicity with negligence; and it is, moreover, an uneasy life that of a disguise; for a man to seem to be what he is not, to keep a perpetual guard upon himself, and to live in fear of a discovery. He takes every man that looks upon him for a spy, over and above the trouble of being put to play another man’s part.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 904

It is the excellency of a great mind to _ask_ nothing, and to _want_ nothing; and to say, “I will have nothing to do with fortune, that repulses Cato, and prefers Vatinius.” He that quits his hold, and accounts anything good that is not honest, runs gaping after casualties, spends his days in anxiety and vain expectation, that man is miserable. And yet it is hard, you will say, to be banished or cast into prison: nay, what if it were to be burnt, or any other way destroyed?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1036

He that has lived at sea in a storm, let him retire and die in the haven; but let his retreat be without ostentation, and wherein he may enjoy himself with a good conscience, without the want, the fear, the hatred, or the desire, of anything, not out of malevolent detestation of mankind, but for satisfaction and repose.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 533

When a man comes once to stand in need of fortune, his life is anxious, suspicious, timorous, dependent upon every moment, and in fear of all accidents. How can that man resign himself to God, or bear his lot, whatever it be, without murmuring, and cheerfully submit to Providence, that shrinks at every motion of pleasure or pain?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 111

His body, it is true, is his master’s, but his mind is his own: and there are many commands which a servant ought no more to obey than a master to impose. There is no man so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 615

It is the first and the main tie of a soldier his military oath, which is an engagement upon him both of religion and honor. In like manner, he that pretends to a happy life must first lay a foundation of virtue, as a bond upon him, to live and die true to that cause. We do not find felicity in the veins of the earth where we dig for gold, nor in the bottom of the sea where we fish for pearls, but in a pure and untainted mind, which, if it were not holy, were not fit to entertain the Deity.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1293

A good and a wise man is not to be an _enemy_ of wicked men, but a _reprover_ of them; and he is to look upon all the drunkards, the lustful, the thankless, covetous, and ambitious, that he meets with, not otherwise than as a physician looks upon his patients; for he that will be angry with _any man_ must be displeased with _all_; which were as ridiculous as to quarrel with a body for stumbling in the dark; with one that is deaf, for not doing as you bid him; or with a school-boy for loving his play better than his book. Democritus _laughed_, and Heraclitus _wept_, at the folly and wickedness of the world, but we never read of any _angry philosopher_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 83

The very meditation of it breeds good blood and generous thoughts; and instructs us in honor, humanity, friendship, piety, gratitude, prudence, and justice. In short, the art and skill of conferring benefits is, of all human duties, the most absolutely necessary to the well-being, both of reasonable nature, and of every individual; as the very cement of all communities, and the blessing of particulars.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 384

As gratitude is a necessary and a glorious, so it is also an obvious, a cheap, and an easy virtue; so obvious, that wheresoever there is a life there is a place for it—so cheap that the covetous man may be grateful without expense—and so easy that the sluggard may be so, likewise, without labor. And yet it is not without its niceties too; for there may be a time, a place or occasion wherein I ought not to return a benefit; nay, wherein I may better disown it than deliver it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 230

What was it that preferred Fabius Persicus, (whose very mouth was the uncleanest part about him,) what was it but the 300 of that family that so generously opposed the enemy for the safety of the commonwealth?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 348

So insensible are we of the most important affair of human life! That man were doubtless in a miserable condition, that could neither see, nor hear, nor taste, nor feel, nor smell; but how much more unhappy is he then that, wanting a sense of benefits, loses the greatest comfort in nature in the bliss of giving and receiving them? He that takes a benefit as it is meant is in the right; for the benefactor has then his end, and his only end, when the receiver is grateful.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1378

Either he must govern that, or that will undo him. Let us do our best to overcome it, but let us, however, keep it close, without giving it any vent. An angry man, if he gives himself liberty at all times, will go too far. If it comes once to show itself in the eye or countenance, it has got the better of us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1228

In the first place, Anger is _unwarrantable_ as it is _unjust_: for it falls many times upon the wrong person, and discharges itself upon the innocent instead of the guilty: beside the disproportion of making the most trivial offences to be capital, and punishing an inconsiderate word perhaps with torments, fetters, infamy, or death. It allows a man neither time nor means for defence, but judges a cause without hearing it, and admits of no mediation.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1070

Suppose I fall into the hands of an enemy, and the conqueror condemns me to be led in triumph; it is but carrying me thither whither I should have gone without him, that is to say, toward death, whither I have been marching ever since I was born. It is the fear of our last hour that disquiets all the rest.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1266

The medicine, in the mean time must be suited to the disease; infamy cures one, pain another, exile cures a third, beggary a fourth; but there are some that are only to be cured by the gibbet. I would be no more angry with a thief, or a traitor, than I am angry with myself when I open a vein. All punishment is but a moral or civil remedy. I do not do anything that is very ill, but yet I transgress often.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1187

Wisdom and thought are the goods of the mind, whereof brutes are wholly incapable; and we are as unlike them within as we are without: they have an odd kind of fancy, and they have a voice too; but inarticulate and confused, and incapable of those variations which are familiar to us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 697

There are some that live without any design at all, and only pass in the world like straws upon a river; they do not go, but they are carried. Others only deliberate upon the parts of life, and not upon the whole, which is a great error: for there is no disposing of the circumstances of it, unless we first propound the main scope. How shall any man take his aim without a mark? or what wind will serve him that is not yet resolved upon his port?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 666

Those are the only true and incorruptible comforts that will abide all trials, and the more we turn and examine them, the more valuable we find them; and the greatest felicity of all is, not to stand in need of any. What is _poverty_? No man lives so poor as he was born. What is _pain_? It will either have an end itself, or make an end of us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1197

The first motion indeed is single; but all the rest is deliberation and superstructure—there is something understood and condemned—an indignation conceived and a revenge propounded. This can never be without the agreement of the mind to the matter in deliberation. The end of this question is to know the nature and quality of _anger_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 613

We are all sick, I must confess, and it is not for sick men to play the physicians; but it is yet lawful for a man in an hospital to discourse of the common condition and distempers of the place. He that should pretend to teach a madman how to speak, walk, and behave himself, were not he the most mad man of the two? He that directs the pilot, makes him move the helm, order the sails so or so, and makes the best of a scant wind, after this or that manner. And so should we do in our counsels.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 799

No man can possess all things, but any man may contemn them; and the contempt of riches is the nearest way to the gaining of them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 100

And again, the benefit that a man receives is the greater, the more he needs it; but the living has more need of life than he that is not yet born; so that the father receives a greater benefit in the continuance of his life than the son in the beginning of it. What if a son deliver his father from the rack; or, which is more, lay himself down in his place?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 293

So long as I am not pressed, I will rather desire a favor, than so much as mention a requital; but if my country, my family, or my liberty, be at stake, my zeal and indignation shall overrule my modesty, and the world shall then understand that I have done all I could, not to stand in need of an ungrateful man. And in conclusion the necessity of receiving a benefit shall overcome the shame of recalling it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 769

It is the same thing with our minds that it is with our tables; simple vices are curable by simple counsels, but a general dissolution of manners is hardly overcome; we are overrun with a public as well as with a private madness.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 630

He that is guilty lives in perpetual terror; and while he expects to be punished, he punishes himself; and whosoever deserves it expects it. What if he be not detected? he is still in apprehension yet that he may be so. His sleeps are painful, and never secure; and he cannot speak of another man’s wickedness without thinking of his own, whereas a good conscience is a continual feast.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 879

Happy is that man that eats only for hunger, and drinks only for thirst; that stands upon his own legs, and lives by reason, not by example; and provides for use and necessity, not for ostentation and pomp! Let us curb our appetites, encourage virtue, and rather be beholden to ourselves for riches than to Fortune, who when a man draws himself into a narrow compass, has the least mark at him.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 67

This answer of Seneca’s was delivered to Cæsar in the presence of Poppæa, and Tigellinus, the intimate confidants of this barbarous prince: and Nero asked him whether he could gather anything from Seneca as if he intended to make himself away? The tribune’s answer was, that he did not find him one jot moved with the message: but that he went on roundly with his tale, and never so much as changed countenance for the matter.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1327

Of all unquiet humors this is the worst, that will never suffer any man to be happy, so long as he sees a happier man than himself. I have known some men so weak as to think themselves contemned if a horse did but play the jade with _them_, that is yet obedient to _another rider_. A brutal folly to be offended at a mute animal; for no injury can be done us without the concurrence of reason. A beast may hurt us, as a sword or a stone, and no otherwise.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 713

As he that would cast off an unhappy love avoids whatsoever may put him in mind of the person, so he that would wholly deliver himself from his beloved lusts must shun all objects that may put them in his head again, and remind him of them. We travel, as children run up and down after strange sights, for novelty, not profit; we return neither the better nor the sounder; nay, and the very agitation hurts us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 286

There was a man of quality, that in the triumviral proscription, was saved by one of Cæsar’s friends, who would be still twitting him with it; who it was that preserved him, and telling him over and over, “you had gone to pot, friend, but for me.” “Pr’ythee,” says the proscribed, “let me hear no more of this, or even leave me as you found me: I am thankful enough of myself to acknowledge that I owe you my life, but it is death to have it rung in my ears perpetually as a reproach; it looks as if you had only saved me to carry me about for a spectacle.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1488

Under a merciful prince, a man will be ashamed to offend, because a punishment that is inflicted by a gentle governor seems to fall heavier and with more reproach: and it is remarkable also, that “those sins are often committed which are very often punished.” Caligula, in five years, condemned more people to the _sack_ than ever were before him: and there were “fewer parricides before the law against them than after;” for our ancestors did wisely presume that the crime would never be committed, until by law for punishing it, they found that it might be done.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 887

If the professors of virtue be as the world calls them, avaricious, libidinous, ambitious—what are they then that have a detestation for the very name of it: but malicious natures do not want wit to abuse honester men than themselves. It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men as little dogs do at strangers; for they look upon other men’s virtues as the upbraiding of their own wickedness. We should do well to commend those that are good, if not, let us pass them over; but, however, let us spare ourselves: for beside the blaspheming of virtue, our rage is to no purpose. But to return now to my text.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 264

He places him betwixt the orbs, solitary and idle, out of the reach of mortals, and neither hearing our prayers nor minding our concerns; and allows him only such a veneration and respect as we pay to our parents. If a man should ask him now, why any reverence at all, if we have no obligation to him, or rather, why that greater reverence to his fortuitous atoms? his answer would be, that it was for their majesty and their admirable nature, and not out of any hope or expectation from them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1207

The moderation of Antigonus was remarkable. Some of his soldiers were railing at him one night, where there was but a hanging betwixt them. Antigonus overheard them, and putting it gently aside; “Soldiers,” says he, “stand a little further off, for fear the king should hear you.” And we are to consider, not only violent examples, but moderate, where there wanted neither cause of displeasure nor power of revenge: as in the case of Antigonus, who the same night hearing his soldiers cursing him for bringing them into so foul a way, he went to them, and without telling them who he was, helped them out of it. “Now,” says he, “you may be allowed to curse him that brought you into the mire, provided you bless him that took you out of it.”

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 402

It may be a good contemplation, but it is a lewd wish. Æneas had never been surnamed _the Pious_, if he had wished the ruin of his country, only that he might have the honor of taking his father out of the fire. It is the scandal of a physician to make work, and irritate a disease, and to torment his patient, for the reputation of his cure.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 363

Neither will I, upon any terms, receive a benefit from a worthy person that may do him a mischief: it is the part of an enemy to save himself by doing another man harm.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 326

It is not enough to do one good turn, and to do it with a good grace too, unless we follow it with more, and without either upbraiding or repining. It is a common shift, to charge that upon the ingratitude of the receiver, which, in truth, is most commonly the levity and indiscretion of the giver; for all circumstances must be duly weighed to consummate the action.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 627

Provided that we look to our consciences, no matter for opinion: let me deserve well, though I hear ill. The common people take stomach and audacity for the marks of magnanimity and honor; and if a man be soft and modest, they look upon him as an easy fop; but when they come once to observe the dignity of his mind in the equality and firmness of his actions; and that his external quiet is founded upon an internal peace, the very same people who have him in esteem and admiration; for there is no man but approves of virtue, though but few pursue it; we see where it is, but we dare not venture to come at it: and the reason is, we overvalue that which we must quit to obtain it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 880

Let my bed be plain and clean, and my clothes so too: my meat without much expense, or many waiters, and neither a burden to my purse nor to my body, not to go out the same way it came in. That which is too little for luxury, is abundantly enough for nature. The end of eating and drinking is satiety; now, what matters it though one eats and drinks more, and another less, so long as the one is not a-hungry, nor the other athirst?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1021

Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things in their studies than if they had led armies, borne offices, or given laws; which in truth they did, not to one city alone, but to all mankind: their _quiet_ contributed more to the common benefit than the _sweat_ and _labor_ of other people. That retreat is not worth the while which does not afford a man greater and nobler work than business.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 888

We are ready enough to limit others but loth to put bonds and restraints upon ourselves, though we know that many times a greater evil is cured by a less; and the mind that will not be brought to virtue by precepts, comes to it frequently by necessity. Let us try a little to eat upon a joint stool, to serve ourselves, to live within compass, and accommodate our clothes to the end they were made for. Occasional experiments of our moderation give us the best proof of our firmness and virtue.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1126

The most justifiable cause of mourning is to see good men come to ill ends, and virtue oppressed by the iniquity of Fortune. But in this case, too, they either suffer resolutely, and yield us delight in their courage and example, or meanly, and so give us the less trouble for the loss. He that dies cheerfully, dries up my tears; and he that dies whiningly, does not deserve them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 227

If a man find the body of my dead father in a desert, and give it a burial; if he did it as to my father, I am beholden to him: but if the body was unknown to him, and that he would have done the same thing for any other body, I am no farther concerned in it than as a piece of public humanity.