On Anger
3 books, 21/36/43 chapters in Stewart
On Anger is the longest of the dialogues, three books written for Seneca’s brother Novatus, who had asked how anger may be soothed. Book I describes the passion and refuses it any use, against Aristotle’s view that it serves the soldier; Book II asks whether it can be avoided and begins the remedies; Book III is the cure, from the first stirring to the evening examination of the day, and ends with the shortness of life.
The English text here is Aubrey Stewart’s, in his Minor Dialogues of 1889, where the work is the third, fourth and fifth books of the dialogues. Stewart counts 21, 36 and 43 chapters; Baillard’s French edition counts 16 chapters in Book I, and 36 and 43 in the other two. Books II and III therefore share their numbering across the two editions, but Book I does not, and a passage of Book I is cited only in its own edition: On Anger, I, V in Stewart is not De la colère, I, V in Baillard. Extracts are cited by book and chapter with the line of the file.
Structure
| Book | Chapters | Concordance |
|---|---|---|
| I | 21 | each edition keeps its own numbering |
| II | 36 | chapter for chapter with Baillard, 1861 |
| III | 43 | chapter for chapter with Baillard, 1861 |
In the edition of Aubrey Stewart, 1889
Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement.
Virtue alone is lofty and sublime, nor is anything great which is not at the same time tranquil.
Nor is the path to virtue steep and rough, as some think it to be: it may be reached on level ground.
A contest with one's equal is of uncertain issue, with one's superior is folly, and with one's inferior is contemptible.
Anger will cease, and become more gentle, if it knows that every day it will have to appear before the judgment seat.
Let us not moderate anger, but get rid of it altogether: what can moderation have to do with an evil habit?
In Stoic+: 71 passages of this work, each with its reference.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+: 71 passages of this work in the app, each with its reference.