Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 537

There is not any duty to which Providence has not annexed a blessing; nor any institution of Heaven which, even in this life, we may not be the better for; not any temptation, either of fortune or of appetite, that is not subject to our reason; nor any passion or affliction for which virtue has not provided a remedy. So that it is our own fault if we either fear or hope for anything; which two affections are the root of all our miseries.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 467

Wisdom is a right understanding, a faculty of discerning good from evil; what is to be chosen, and what rejected; a judgment grounded upon the value of things, and not the common opinion of them; an equality of force, and a strength of resolution. It sets a watch over our words and deeds, it takes us up with the contemplation of the works of nature, and makes us invincible by either good or evil fortune.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 735

The burning of Lyons may serve to show us that we are never safe, and to arm us against all surprises. The terror of it must needs be great, for the calamity is almost without example. If it had been fired by an enemy, the flame would have left some further mischief to have been done by the soldiers; but to be wholly consumed, we have not heard of many earthquakes so pernicious: so many rarities to be destroyed in one night; and in the depth of peace to suffer an outrage beyond the extremity of war; who would believe it? but twelve hours betwixt so fair a city and none at all! It was laid in ashes in less time than it would require to tell the story.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1495

Upon this he resolved upon a revenge, and sent for several of his friends to advise upon it. The thought of it kept him waking, to consider, that there was the life of a young nobleman in the case, the nephew of Pompey, and a person otherwise innocent. He was off and on several times whether he should put him to death or not. “What!” says he, “shall I live in trouble and in danger myself, and the contriver of my death walk free and secure?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1016

But still he that is not at leisure many times to live, must, when his fate comes, whether he will or not, be at leisure to die. Alas! what is time to eternity? the age of a man to the age of the world? And how much of this little do we spend in fears, anxieties, tears, childhood! nay, we sleep away the one half. How great a part of it runs away in luxury and excess: the ranging of our guests, our servants, and our dishes! As if we were to eat and drink not for satiety, but ambition.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 154

The particularity does much, but yet the same thing may receive a different estimate from several persons; for there are ways of marking and recommending it in such a manner, that if the same _good office_ be done to twenty people, every one of them shall reckon himself peculiarly obliged as a cunning whore, if she has a thousand sweethearts, will persuade every one of them she loves him best. But this is rather the artifice of conversation than the virtue of it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1394

If it be a small matter, I would have witnesses; but if it be a greater, I would have it upon oath, and allow time to the accused, and counsel too, and hear over and over again.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 794

There is some substance yet in gold and silver; but as to judgments and statutes, procuration and continuance-money, these are only the visions and dreams of avarice. Throw a crust of bread to a dog, he takes it open-mouthed, swallows it whole, and presently gapes for more: just so do we with the gifts of Fortune; down they go without chewing, and we are immediately ready for another chop.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1380

His friends would take notice of it; and it was not to his disadvantage neither, but rather to his credit, that so many should _know_ that he was angry, and nobody _feel_ it; which could not have been, if he had not given his friends the same liberty of admonition which he himself took.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 399

By nature we are prone to mercy, humanity compassion; may we be excited to be more so by the number of the grateful! may their number increase, and may we have no need of trying them!

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1475

Is it not a shame, after such an example of moderation in these creatures, that men should be yet intemperate? It were well if they lost their stings too in their revenge, as well as the other, that they might hurt but once, and do no mischief by their proxies. It would tire them out, if either they were to execute all with their own hands, or to wound others at the peril of their own lives.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 141

For our better direction, let it be noted, “That a benefit is a common tie betwixt the giver and receiver, with respect to both:” wherefore it must be accommodated to the rules of discretion; for all things have their bounds and measures, and so must liberality among the rest; that it be neither too much for the one nor too little for the other; the excess being every jot as bad as the defect.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 573

When I go to _sleep_, who knows whether I shall ever _wake_ again? and when I _wake_, whether ever I shall _sleep_ again? When I go _abroad_, whether ever I shall come _home_ again? and when I _return_, whether ever I shall go _abroad_ again? It is not at sea only that life and death are within a few inches one of another; but they are as near everywhere else too, only we do not take so much notice of it. What have we to do with frivolous and captious questions, and impertinent niceties?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 257

It is my duty to be true to a trust, and yet there may be a time or a place, wherein I would make little difference betwixt the renouncing of it and the delivering of it up; and the same rule holds in benefits; I will neither render the one, nor bestow the other, to the damage of the receiver. A wicked man will run all risks to do an injury, and to compass his revenge; and shall not an honest man venture as far to do a good office? All benefits must be gratuitous.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1236

In fine, as it is unreasonable to be angry at a crime, it is as foolish to be angry without one.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 65

Hereupon Granius Silvanus (a captain of the guard) was sent to examine Seneca upon the discourse that passed betwixt him and Natalis, and to return his answer. Seneca, either by chance or upon purpose, came that day from Campania, to a villa of his own, within four miles of the city; and thither the officer went the next evening, and beset the place. He found Seneca at supper with his wife Paulina, and two of his friends; and gave him immediately an account of his commission.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 500

If one could but see the mind of a good man, as it is illustrated with virtue; the beauty and the majesty of it, which is a dignity not so much as to be thought of without love and veneration—would not a man bless himself at the sight of such an object as at the encounter of some supernatural power—a power so miraculous that it is a kind of charm upon the souls of those that are truly affected with it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1099

A great soul takes no delight in staying with the body: it considers whence it came, and knows whither it is to go. The day will come that shall separate this mixture of soul and body, of divine and human; my body I will leave where I found it, my soul I will restore to heaven, which would have been there already, but for the clog that keeps it down: and beside, how many men have been the worse for longer living, that might have died with reputation if they had been sooner taken away! How many disappointments of hopeful youths, that have proved dissolute men! Over and above the ruins, shipwrecks, torments, prisons, that attend long life; a blessing so deceitful, that if a child were in condition to judge of it, and at liberty to refuse it, he would not take it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 706

We do all of us labor under inordinate desires; we are either timorous, and dare not venture, or venturing we do not succeed; or else we cast ourselves upon uncertain hopes, where we are perpetually solicitous, and in suspense.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 255

It is objected to us, the singular caution we prescribe in the choice of the person: for it were a madness, we say, for a husbandman to sow the sand: which, if true, say they, you have an eye upon profit, as well in giving as in plowing and sowing. And then they say again, that if the conferring of a benefit were desirable in itself, it would have no dependence upon the choice of a man; for let us give it when, how, or wheresoever we please, it would be still a benefit.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 249

The seed of everything is in itself, and it is the blessing of God that raises it out of the dark into act and motion. To say nothing of the charming varieties of music, beautiful objects, delicious provisions for the palate, exquisite perfumes, which are cast in, over and above, to the common necessities of our being.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 575

Our houses are on fire, our country invaded, our goods taken away, our children in danger; and, I might add to these, the calamities of earthquakes, shipwrecks, and whatever else is most terrible. Is this a time for us now to be playing fast and loose with idle questions, which are in effect so many unprofitable riddles?

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 590

So soon as we find the affections struck, we must follow the blow; not with _syllogisms_ or quirks of _wit_; but with _plain_ and _weighty reason_ and we must do it with _kindness_ too, and _respect_ for “there goes a blessing along with counsels and discourses that are bent wholly upon the good of the hearer:” and those are still the most efficacious that take reason along with them; and tell us as well why we are to do this or that, as _what_ we are to do: for some understandings are weak, and need an instructor to expound to them what is good and what is evil.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1299

Some there are that take anger for a princely quality; as Darius, who, in his expedition against the Scythians, being besought by a nobleman, that had three sons, that he would vouchsafe to accept of two of them into his service, and leave the third at home for a comfort to his father. “I will do more for you than that,” says Darius, “for you shall have them all three again;” so he ordered them to be slain before his face, and left him their bodies.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1235

It is a sign of weakness, and a kind of stumbling, for a man to run when he intends only to walk; and it behoves us to have the same command of our mind that we have of our bodies. Besides that the greatest punishment of an injury is the conscience of having done it; and no man suffers more than he that is turned over to the pain of a repentance. How much better is it to compose injuries than to revenge them? For it does not only spend time, but the revenge of one injury exposes to more.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 10

To pass now from the general scope of the whole work to the particular argument of the first part of it, I pitched upon the theme of _Benefits_, _Gratitude_, and _Ingratitude_, to begin withal, as an earnest of the rest, and a lecture expressly calculated for the unthankfulness of these times; the foulest undoubtedly, and the most execrable of all others, since the very apostasy of the angels: nay, if I durst but suppose a possibility of mercy for those damned spirits, and that they might ever be taken into favor again, my charity would hope even better for them than we have found from some of our revolters, and that they would so behave themselves as not to incur a second forfeiture.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 387

Suppose my friend a prisoner, and that I have sold my estate for his ransom; I put to sea in foul weather, and upon a coast that is pestered with pirates; my friend happens to be redeemed before I come to the place; my gratitude is as much to be esteemed as if he had been a prisoner; and if I had been taken and robbed myself, it would still have been the same case.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 804

Demades of Athens condemned a fellow that sold necessaries for funerals, upon proof that he wished to make himself a fortune by his trade, which could not be but by a great mortality; but perhaps he did not so much desire to have many customers, as to sell dear, and buy cheap; besides, that all of that trade might have been condemned as well as he.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 645

It is every man’s duty to make himself profitable to mankind—if he can, to many—if not, to fewer—if not so neither, to his neighbor—but, however, to himself. There are two republics: a great one, which is human nature; and a less, which is the place where we were born. Some serve both at a time, some only the greater, and some again only the less.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1284

It holds in anger as in mourning, it must and it will at last fall of itself; let us look to it then betimes, for when it is once come to an ill habit, we shall never want matter to feed it; and it is much better to overcome our passions than to be overcome by them. Some way or other, either our parents, children, servants, acquaintance, or strangers, will be continually vexing us.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1193

The _first_ motion of _anger_ is in truth involuntary, and only a kind of menacing preparation towards it. The _second_ deliberates; as who should say, “This injury should not pass without a revenge,” and there it stops. The _third_ is impotent; and, right or wrong, resolves upon vengeance. The _first motion_ is not to be avoided, nor indeed the _second_, any more than yawning for company; custom and care may lessen it, but reason itself cannot overcome it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 841

How many things are there that the fancy makes terrible by night, which the day turns into ridiculous! What is there in labor, or in death, that a man should be afraid of? They are much slighter in act than in contemplation; and we _may_ contemn them, but we _will_ not: so that it is not because they are hard that we dread them, but they are hard because we are first afraid of them.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1310

This put Cambyses into such a rage, that he presently listed into his service every man that was able to bear arms; and, without either provisions or guides, marched immediately through dry and barren deserts, and where never any man had passed before him, to take his revenge. Before he was a third part of the way, his provisions failed him.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1428

He would not so much as give the expiring leave to groan, but caused their mouths to be stopped with sponges, or for want of them, with rags of their own clothes, that they might not breathe out so much as their last agonies at liberty; or, perhaps, lest the tormented should speak something which the tormentor had no mind to hear.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 213

If I may be angry with myself, I may thank myself; and if I chide myself, I may as well commend myself, and do myself good as well as hurt; there is the same reason of contraries: it is a common thing to say, “Such a man hath done himself an injury.” If an injury, why not a benefit? But I say, that no man can be a debtor to himself; for the benefit must naturally precede the acknowledgment; and a debtor can no more be without a creditor than a husband without a wife.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 757

Their life must needs be wretched that get with great pains what they keep with greater.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 889

A well-governed appetite is a great part of liberty, and it is a blessed lot, that since no man can have all things that he would have, we may all of us forbear desiring what we have not. It is the office of temperance to overrule us in our pleasures; some she rejects, others she qualifies and keeps within bounds. Oh! the delights of rest when a man comes to be weary, and of meat when he is heartily hungry.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 809

Ambition aspires from great things to greater; and propounds matters even impossible, when it has once arrived at things beyond expectation. It is a kind of dropsy; the more a man drinks, the more he covets. Let any man but observe the tumults and the crowds that attend palaces; what affronts must we endure to be admitted, and how much greater when we are in!

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 40

In the book that Seneca wrote against Superstitions, treating of images, says St.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 935

Our passions are numerous and strong, and not to be mastered with quirks and tricks, as if a man should undertake to defend the cause of God and man with a bulrush.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1104

The very necessaries of life are deadly to us; we meet with our fate in our dishes, in our cups, and in the very air we breathe; nay, our very birth is inauspicious, for we come into the world weeping, and in the middle of our designs, while we are meditating great matters, and stretching of our thoughts to after ages, death cuts us off, and our longest date is only the revolution of a few years.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1073

A good and a brave man is not moved with lightning, tempest, or earthquakes; but perhaps he would voluntarily plunge himself into that gulf, where otherwise he should only fall. The cutting of a corn, or the swallowing of a fly, is enough to dispatch a man; and it is no matter how great that is that brings me to my death, so long as death itself is but little. Life is a small matter; but it is a matter of importance to contemn it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 380

No man can be grateful without contemning those things that put the common people out of their wits. We must go into banishment; lay down our lives; beggar and expose ourselves to reproaches; nay, it is often seen, that loyalty suffers the punishment due to rebellion, and that treason receives the rewards of fidelity.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1245

It is a mistake to say, that we may make use of anger as a common soldier, but not as a commander; for if it hears reason, and follows orders, it is not properly anger; and if it does not, it is contumacious and mutinous. By this argument a man must be angry to be valiant; covetous to be industrious; timorous to be safe, which makes our reason confederate with our affections.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 738

She persecutes the most temperate with sickness, the strongest constitutions with the phthisis; she brings the innocent to punishment, and the most retired she assaults with tumults. Those glories that have grown up with many ages, with infinite labor and expense, and under the favor of many auspicious providences, one day scatters and brings to nothing. He that pronounced a day, nay, an hour, sufficient for the destruction of the greatest empire, might have fallen to a moment.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1027

All he could do then was but bawling and beating of the air: one while he was lugged and tumbled by the rabble, spit upon and dragged out of the _forum_, and then again hurried out of the senate-house to prison. There are some things which we propound originally, and others which fall in as accessory to another proposition. If a wise man retire, it is no matter whether he does it because the commonwealth was wanting to him, or because he was wanting to it.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 1492

An universal hatred unites in a popular rage. A temperate fear may be kept in order; but when it comes once to be continual and sharp, it provokes people to extremities, and transports them to desperate resolutions, as wild beasts when they are pressed upon the _toil_, turn back and assault the very pursuers. A turbulent government is a perpetual trouble both to prince and people; and he that is a terror to all others is not without terror also himself.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 859

There is not anything that is necessary to us but we have it either _cheap_ or _gratis_: and this is the provision that our heavenly Father has made for us, whose bounty was never wanting to our needs. It is true the belly craves and calls upon us, but then a small matter contents it: a little bread and water is sufficient, and all the rest is but superfluous.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 618

He that has dedicated his mind to virtue, and to the good of human society, whereof he is a member, has consummated all that is either profitable or necessary for him to know or to do toward the establishment of his peace. Every man has a judge and a witness within himself of all the good and ill that he does, which inspires us with great thoughts, and administers to us wholesome counsels.

Morals of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency, passage 319

To conclude, he that will oblige the wicked and the ungrateful, must resolve to oblige nobody; for in some sort or another we are all of us wicked, we are all of us ungrateful, every man of us.