A01 · Anger and Conflict
Acute anger and rage
Surges of temper, fury or vengeful heat that hijack judgement.
Cues
Showing 12 of 12 cues
“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.”
“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”
“As you move forward along the path of reason, people will stand in your way. They will never be able to keep you from doing what’s sound, so don’t let them knock out your goodwill for them. Keep a steady watch on both fronts, not only for well-based judgments and actions, but also for gentleness with those who would obstruct our path or create other difficulties. For getting angry is also a weakness, just as much as abandoning the task or surrendering under panic.”
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own ...”
“‘Anger is useful,’ says our adversary, ‘because it makes men more ready to fight.’ According to that mode of reasoning, then, drunkenness also is a good thing, for it makes men insolent and daring, and many use their weapons better when the worse for liquor. ... No man becomes braver through anger, except one who without anger would not have been brave at all: anger does not therefore come to assist courage, but to take its place.”
“Reason gives each side time to plead; moreover, she herself demands adjournment, that she may have sufficient scope for the discovery of the truth; whereas anger is in a hurry: reason wishes to give a just decision; anger wishes its decision to be thought just. ... The sword of justice is ill-placed in the hands of an angry man.”
“I don't add to my troubles.”
“Seek not for events to happen as you wish but wish events to happen as they do and your life will go smoothly.”
“For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill?”
“It is not things that trouble us, but our judgements about things.”
“This state of inner attunement is not always joyful or serene ... Sometimes it involves feeling with devastating intensity the conflicts, the rages, the intimations of mortality we have been trying to deny ... Yearnings, rages, jealousies, dependencies, and estrangements can be safely lived through when the persons upon whom we might wrongly (or dangerously, or foolishly) unleash them are absent.”
The daimonic passions
Rollo May defines the daimonic as any natural drive (sex, love, anger, rage, desire for power) able to take over the whole person. Amoral in themselves, they enliven us when integrated or turn demonic when suppressed.