Precept & Practice – MARCH 29 – Only Temper

Anger is a confluence of all the irregular passions; there are in it envy and sorrow, fear and scorn, pride and prejudice, rashness and inconsideration, rejoicing in evil and a desire to inflict it, self-love, impatience, and curiosity.

Jeremy Taylor

Our anger and impatience often prove more mischievous than the things about which we are angry and impatient.

Marcus Aurelius

Keep me from wrath, let it seem e’er so right;  my wrath will never work Thy righteousness. Incline mine heart to take men’s wrongs as Thou tak’st mine.

G. MacDonald

Losing one’s temper means losing peace of spirit, losing control over self, losing clearness of thought, losing grasp of the situation, and usually losing the respect of bystanders.   This is all outside of the central fact that anger is a sin.   Yet some foolish people speak of only losing one’s temper’ as if it were nothing.

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW