"Consider how much more often you suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved."
"The _difficult_ part of good temper consists in forbearance, and accommodation to the ill-humour of others."
"Do we not know that the storm of feeling can be checked, if only we can prevent the first word from being spoken, the first gesture from being made. And is it not matter of common observation that persons who begin by being Stoics in demeanour end by becoming Stoics in reality?"
_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.
"If this be one of our chief duties--promoting the happiness of our neighbours--most certainly there is nothing which so entirely runs counter to it, and makes it impossible, as an undisciplined temper. For of all things that are to be met with here on earth, there is nothing which can give such continual, such cutting, such useless pain. The touchy and sensitive temper, which takes offence at a word; the irritable temper, which finds offence in everything whether intended or not; the violent temper, which breaks through all bounds of reason when once roused; the jealous or sullen temper, which wears a cloud on the face all day, and never utters a word of complaint; the discontented temper, brooding over its own wrongs; the severe temper, which always looks at the worst side of whatever is done; the wilful temper, which over-rides every scruple to gratify a whim,--what an amount of pain have these caused in the hearts of men, if we could but sum up their results! How many a soul have they stirred to evil impulses; how many a prayer have they stifled; how many an emotion of true affection have they turned to bitterness! How hard they sometimes make all duties! How painful they make all daily life! How they kill the sweetest and warmest of domestic charities! The misery caused by other sins is often much deeper and much keener, more disastrous, more terrible to the sight; but the accumulated pain caused by ill-temper must, I verily believe, if added together, outweigh all other pains that men have to bear from one another."
"Blow not into a flame the spark which is kindled between two friends. They are easily reconciled, and will both hate you."