Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 633

It is dangerous for a man too suddenly, or too easily, to believe himself. Wherefore let us examine, observe, and inspect our own hearts, for we ourselves are our own greatest flatterers: we should every night call ourselves to account, “What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired?” Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought every day to the shrift. Oh the blessed sleep that follows such a diary!

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1169

No man finds poverty a trouble to him, but he that thinks it so; and he that thinks it so, makes it so. Does not a rich man travel more at ease with less luggage, and fewer servants? Does he not eat many times as little and as coarse in the field as a poor man? Does he not for his own pleasure, sometimes, and for variety, feed upon the ground, and use only earthen vessels?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 811

Nay, though we ourselves would be at rest, our fortune will not suffer it: the way that leads to honor and riches leads to troubles; and we find the source of our sorrows in the very objects of our delights.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 353

To the first point, I will take it; but only as a debt; not as a benefit, that shall ever tie me to a friendship with him; and, secondly, my acknowledgment shall be only correspondent to such an obligation. It is a school question, whether or not Brutus, that thought Cæsar not fit to live, (and put himself at the head of a conspiracy against him,) could honestly have received his life from Cæsar, if he had fallen into Cæsar’s power, without examining what reason moved him to that action?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 585

Precepts are idle, if we be not first taught what opinion we are to have of the matter in question; whether it be _poverty_, _riches_, _disgrace_, _sickness_, _banishment_, etc. Let us therefore examine them one by one; not what they are _called_, but what in truth they _are_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 484

Arts are but the servants—wisdom commands—and where the matter fails it is none of the workman’s fault. He is cautelous in doubtful cases, in prosperity temperate, and resolute in adversity, still making the best of every condition and improving all occasions to make them serviceable to his fate. Some accidents there are, which I confess may affect him, but not overthrow him, as bodily pains, loss of children and friends, the ruin and desolation of a man’s country.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 269

If the world were wise, and as honest as it should be, there would be no need of caution or precept how to behave ourselves in our several stations and duties; for both the giver and the receiver would do what they ought to do on their own accord: the one would be bountiful, and the other grateful, and the only way of minding a man of one good turn would be the following of it with another. But as the case stands, we must take other measures, and consult the best we can, the common ease and relief of mankind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 241

Let us be liberal then, after the example of our great Creator, and give to others with the same consideration that he gives to us. Epicurus’s answer will be to this, that God gives no benefits at all, but turns his back upon the world; and without any concern for us, leaves Nature to take her course: and whether he does anything himself, or nothing, he takes no notice, however, either of the good or of the ill that is done here below.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 468

It is large and spacious, and requires a great deal of room to work in; it ransacks heaven and earth; it has for its object things past and to come, transitory and eternal.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 265

So that by his proper confession, a thing may be desirable for its own worth. But, says he, gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it. And where is the virtue, say I, that has not? but still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1276

Other vices are unreasonable, but this is unhealthful too; other distempers have their intervals and degrees, but in this we are thrown down as from a precipice: there is not anything so amazing to others, or so destructive to itself; so proud and insolent if it succeeds, or so extravagant if it be disappointed.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1360

We are, in the first place, to avoid all provocations, and the beginnings of anger: for if we be once down, it is a hard task to get up again. When our passion has got the better of our reason, and the enemy is received into the gate, we cannot expect that the conqueror should take conditions from the prisoner. And, in truth, our reason, when it is thus mastered, turns effectually into passion.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1051

Beside, that we are to go to a strange place in the dark, and under great uncertainties of our future state; so that people die in terror, because they do not know whither they are to go, and they are apt to fancy the worst of what they do not understand: these thoughts are indeed sufficient to startle a man of great resolution without a wonderful support from above.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1059

He was at play when the officer carried him away to his execution, and beckoning to the centurion, “Pray,” says he, “will you bear me witness, when I am dead and gone, that I had the better of the game?” He was a man exceedingly beloved and lamented, and, for a farewell, after he had preached moderation to his friends; “You,” says he, “are here disputing about the immortality of the soul, and I am now going to learn the truth of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1006

It is but a moment that we live, and yet we are dividing it into _childhood_, _youth_, _man’s estate_, and _old age_, all which degrees we bring into that narrow compass. If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are to come.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 994

Let us make haste, therefore, to live, since every day to a wise man is a new life—for he has done his business the day before, and so prepared himself for the next, that if it be not his last, he knows yet that it might have been so. No man enjoys the true taste of life but he that is willing and ready to quit it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 301

I will sup at such a place though it be cold; I will rise at such an hour though I be sleepy; but if it prove tempestuous, or that I fall sick of a fever, I will neither do the one nor the other.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1283

Our wrath cannot go beyond death; and death will most undoubtedly come whether we be peevish or quiet. It is time lost to take pains to do that which will infallibly be done without us. But suppose that we would only have our enemy banished, disgraced, or damaged, let his punishment be more or less, it is yet too long, either for him to be inhumanly tormented, or for us ourselves to be most barbarously pleased with it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 498

It is not a despicable body or condition, nor poverty, infamy or scandal, that can obscure the glories of virtue; but a man may see her through all oppositions: and he that looks diligently into the state of a wicked man will see the canker at his heart, through all the false and dazzling splendors of greatness and fortune. We shall then discover our _childishness_, in setting our hearts upon things trivial and contemptible, and in the selling of our very country and parents for a _rattle_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1128

Some (I know) will have grief to be only the perverse delight of a restless mind, and sorrows and pleasures to be near akin; and there are, I am confident, that find joy even in their tears. But which is more barbarous, to be insensible of grief for the death of a friend, or to fish for pleasure in grief, when a son perhaps is burning, or a friend expiring? To forget one’s friend, to bury the memory with the body, to lament out of measure, is all inhuman.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1098

The thunderbolt is undoubtedly just that draws even from those that are struck with it a veneration.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 997

They never put time to account, which is the most valuable of all precious things; but because they do not see it they reckon upon it as nothing: and yet these easy men when they come to die would give the whole world for those hours again which they so inconsiderately cast away before; but there is no recovering of them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 362

A man may both hate and yet receive a benefit at the same time; the money is never the worse, because a fool that is not read in coins refuses to take it. If the thing be good for the receiver, and so intended, no matter how ill it is taken. Nay, the receiver may be obliged, and not know it; but there can be no benefit which is unknown to the giver.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1280

Alexander had two friends, Clytus and Lysimachus; the one he exposed to a lion, the other to himself; and he that was turned loose to the beast escaped. Why do we not rather make the best of a short life, and render ourselves amiable to all while we live, and desirable when we die?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1270

There is not any mortal that lives free from the danger of it; for it makes even the heavy and the good-natured to be fierce and outrageous: it invades us like a pestilence, the lusty as well as the weak; and it is not either strength of body, or a good diet, that can secure us against it; nay, the most learned, and men otherwise of exemplary sobriety, are infected with it. It is so potent a passion that Socrates durst not trust himself with it. “Sirrah,” says he to his man, “now would I beat you, if I were not angry with you!” There is no age or sect of men that escapes it. Other vices take us one by one; but this, like an _epidemical contagion_, sweeps all: men, women, and children, princes and beggars, are carried away with it in shoals and troops as one man.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1444

It is objected by some, that _clemency_ is an insignificant virtue; and that only the bad are the better for it, for the good have no need of it. But in the first place, as physic is in use only among the sick, and yet in honor with the sound, so the innocent have a reverence for clemency, though criminals are properly the objects of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 849

How sad a calamity is poverty to one man, which to another appears rather desirable than inconvenient? For the poor man, who has nothing to lose, has nothing to fear: and he that would enjoy himself to the satisfaction of his soul, must be either poor indeed, or at least look as if he were so. Some people are extremely dejected with sickness and pain; whereas Epicurus blessed his fate with his last breath, in the acutest torments of the stone imaginable.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1095

We see the force even of our infirmities, and shall we not then do greater things for the love of virtue? To suffer death is but the law of nature; and it is a great comfort that it can be done but once; in the very convulsions of it we have this consolation, that our pain is near an end, and that it frees us from all the miseries of life.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1464

What towns shall be advanced or destroyed; who shall be slaves, or who free, depends upon my will; and yet, in this arbitrary power of acting without control, I was never transported to do any cruel thing, either by anger or hot blood in myself or by the contumacy, rashness, or provocations of other men; though sufficient to turn mercy itself into fury.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1188

Anger is not only a vice, but a vice point-blank against nature, for it divides instead of joining; and in some measure, frustrates the end of Providence in human society. One man was born to help another; anger makes us destroy one another; the one unites, the other separates; the one is beneficial to us, the other mischievous; the one succors even strangers, the other destroys even the most intimate friends; the one ventures all to save another, the other ruins himself to undo another. Nature is bountiful, but anger is pernicious: for it is not fear, but mutual love that binds up mankind.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 251

The Stoics represent the several _functions_ of the _Almighty Power_ under several _appellations_.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1448

Though mercy and gentleness of nature keeps all in peace and tranquillity, even in a _cottage_; yet it is much more beneficial and conspicuous in a _palace. Private men_ in their _condition_ are likewise _private_ in their _virtues_ and in their _vices_; but the words and the actions of _princes_ are the subject of _public rumor_; and therefore they had need have a care, what occasion they give people for discourse, of whom people will be always a talking.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 698

We live as it were by chance, and by chance we are governed. Some there are that torment themselves afresh with the memory of what is past: “Lord! what did I endure? never was any man in my condition; everybody gave me over; my very heart was ready to break,” etc.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 300

In the promise of a good office to a wicked or ungrateful man, I am to blame if I did it knowingly; and I am to blame nevertheless, if I did it otherwise: but I must yet make it good, (under due qualifications,) because I promised it; that is to say, matters continuing in the same state, for no man is answerable for accidents.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1382

When that power comes once to be exercised to a common mischief, it can never long continue; a common fear joining in one cause all their divided complaints. In a word now, how we may prevent, moderate, or master this impotent passion in others.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 795

But what has avarice now to do with gold and silver, that is so much outdone by curiosities of a far greater value? Let us no longer complain that there was not a heavier load laid upon those precious metals, or that they were not buried deep enough, when we have found out ways by wax and parchments, and by bloody usurious contracts, to undo one another.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1255

If a man should be angry at wickedness, the greater the wickedness is, the greater must be his anger; and, so long as there is wickedness in the world he must never be pleased: which makes his quiet dependent upon the humor or manners of others.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1219

Neither is _anger_ a bare resemblance only of madness, but many times an irrevocable transition into the thing itself. How many persons have we known, read, and heard of, that have lost their wits in a passion, and never came to themselves again? It is therefore to be avoided, not only for moderation’s sake, but also for health. Now, if the outward appearance of anger be so foul and hideous, how deformed must that miserable mind be that is harassed with it?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 109

In the question betwixt a master and a servant, we must distinguish betwixt benefits, duties, and actions ministerial. By _benefits_, we understand those good offices that we receive from strangers, which are voluntary, and may be forborne without blame. _Duties_ are the parts of a son and wife, and incumbent upon kindred and relations. _Offices ministerial_ belong to the part of a servant.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 545

It makes us inspect and govern our manners; it rouses us where we are faint and drowsy: it binds up what is loose, and humbles in us that which is contumacious: it delivers the mind from the bondage of the body, and raises it up to the contemplation of its divine original.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 52

His father came to Rome in the time of Augustus, and his wife and children soon followed him, our Seneca yet being in his infancy. There were three brothers of them, and never a sister. Marcus Annæus Novatus, Lucius Annæus Seneca, and Lucius Annæus Mela; the first of these changed his name for Junius Gallio, who adopted him; to him it was that he dedicated his treatise of ANGER, whom he calls Novatus too; and he also dedicated his discourse of a _Happy Life_ to his brother Gallio.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 143

It passes in the world for greatness of mind to be perpetually giving and loading of people with bounties; but it is one thing to know how to _give_, and another thing not to know how to _keep_. Give me a heart that is easy and open, but I will have no holes in it; let it be bountiful with judgment, but I will have nothing run out of it I know not how. How much greater was he that refused the city than the other that offered it?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 742

Wherefore let us set before our eyes the whole condition of human nature, and consider as well what _may_ happen as what commonly _does_. The way to make future calamities easy to us in the sufferance, is to make them familiar to us in the contemplation. How many cities in Asia, Achaia, Assyria, Macedonia, have been swallowed up by earthquakes?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 321

They compare a wicked man’s mind to a vitiated stomach; he corrupts whatever he receives, and the best nourishment turns to the disease. But taking this for granted, a wicked man may yet so far be obliged as to pass for ungrateful, if he does not requite what he receives: for though it be not a perfect benefit, yet he receives something like it. There are goods of the mind, the body, and of fortune. Of the first sort, fools and wicked men are wholly incapable; to the rest they may be admitted.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1157

It is troublesome, I know, at first, to abstain from the pleasures we have been used to, and to endure hunger and thirst; but in a little time we lose the very appetite, and it is no trouble then to be without that which we do not desire.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1405

It is a kind of spiteful comfort, that whoever does me an injury may receive one; and that there is a power over him that is above me. A man should stand as firm against all indignities as a rock does against the waves.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 922

It is no new thing to die, no new thing to mourn, and no new thing to be merry again. Must I be _poor_? I shall have company: in _banishment_? I will think myself born there. If I _die_, I shall be no more sick; and it is a thing I cannot do but once.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 261

He that does it for me in common with himself, if he had a prospect upon both in the doing it, I am obliged to him for it; and glad with all my heart that he had a share in it. Nay, I were ungrateful and unjust if I should not rejoice, that what was beneficial to me might be so likewise to himself.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 534

It is virtue alone that raises us above griefs, hopes, fears and chances; and makes us not only patient, but willing, as knowing that whatever we suffer is according to the decree of Heaven. He that is overcome with pleasure, (so contemptible and weak an enemy) what will become of him when he comes to grapple with dangers, necessities, torments, death, and the dissolution of nature itself?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 247

If a man bestows upon us a house that is delicately beautified with paintings, statues, gildings, and marble, we make a mighty business of it, and yet it lies at the mercy of a puff of wind, the snuff of a candle, and a hundred other accidents, to lay it in the dust. And is it nothing now to sleep under the canopy of heaven, where we have the globe of the earth for our place of repose, and the glories of the heavens for our spectacle?