Old Age is not so fiery as Youth; but when once provoked cannot be appeased.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3704 (1732)
(Source)
Quotations about:
temper
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
The wise man preserves a smooth-tempered self-control.
[πρὸς σοφοῦ γὰρ ἀνδρὸς ἀσκεῖν σώφρον᾽ εὐοργησίαν.]
Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Bacchæ [Βάκχαι], l. 641ff [Dionysus/Διόνυσος] (405 BC) [tr. Vellacott (1973)]
(Source)
An ironic statement from Dionysus, of how he will keep his calm and temper in the face of Pentheus' disrespectful fury. In very short order, Dionysus is (calmly) setting up Pentheus' self-destruction through the Bacchantes' frenzy.
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:
For it behoves the wise
To curb the sallies of outrageous ire.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]
For it is the part of a wise man to practice restrained good temper.
[tr. Buckley (1850)]
’Tis easy to a wise man To practise self-command.
[tr. Milman (1865)]
For a wise man ever knoweth how to keep his passion down.
[tr. Rogers (1872)]
For ’tis a wise man’s way to school his temper into due control.
[tr. Coleridge (1891)]
For it is the wise man's part to rein his wrath in soberness.
[tr. Way (1898)]
For still are the ways of Wisdom, and her temper trembleth not!
[tr. Murray (1902)]
Wise men know constraint: our passions are controlled.
[tr. Arrowsmith (1960)]
For it is the quality of a wise man to exercise restrained good temper.
[tr. Kirk (1970)]
The secret of life is
Balance, tolerance.
[tr. Soyinka (1973)]
A wise man should practice pure thought and good temper.
[tr. Neuburg (1988)]
A wise man knows restraint. His strength is his detachment.
[tr. Cacoyannis (1982)]
For the wise know gentleness is wisdom.
[tr. Blessington (1993)]
For it is the part of a wise man to employ a controlled and gentle temper.
[tr. Esposito (1998)]
A wise man trains his temper to be good and calm.
[tr. Woodruff (1999)]
Because a man
Who is wise has self-control and gentleness of temper.
[tr. Gibbons/Segal (2000)]
It is a wise man's part to practice gentleness and self-control.
[tr. Kovacs (2002)]
He who would be wise will keep his self-control.
[tr. Teevan (2002)]
That is how wise people work, calmly.
[tr. Theodoridis (2005)]
A wise man is able to hold his good-nature well tempered.
[tr. Valerie (2005)]
After all, a wise man ought to keep his temper.
[tr. Johnston (2008)]
He should learn from me the ways of self-control.
[tr. Robertson (2014)]
Keep calm and carry on, as the wisest say.
[tr. Pauly (2019)]
The wise man has a reasonable temper.
[tr. Behr/Foster (2019)]
A sophos man must practice good temper that is moderate [sōphrōn].
[tr. Buckley/Sens/Nagy (2020)]
A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.
Fear, born of that stern matron, Responsibility, sits on one’s shoulders like some heavy imp of darkness, and one is preoccupied and, possibly, cantankerous.
Tolerance, good temper and sympathy — they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“What I Believe,” The Nation (16 Jul 1938)
(Source)
It is the trifles of life that are its bores, after all. Most men can meet ruin calmly, for instance, or laugh when they lie in a ditch with their own knee-joint and their hunter’s spine broken over the double post and rails: it is the mud that has choked up your horn just when you wanted to rally the pack; it’s the whip who carries you off to a division just when you’ve sat down to your turbot; it’s the ten seconds by which you miss the train; it’s the dust that gets in your eyes as you go down to Epsom; it’s the pretty little rose note that went by accident to your house instead of your club, and raised a storm from madame; it’s the dog that always will run wild into the birds; it’s the cook who always will season the white soup wrong — it is these that are the bores of life, and that try the temper of your philosophy.
Ouida (1839-1908) English novelist [pseud. of Maria Louise Ramé]
Under Two Flags, ch. 1 (1867)
(Source)
In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Compensation,” Essays: First Series (1841)
(Source)
It is a dear and lovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
In The North American Review (1906)
(Source)
Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are bitterer than to feel bitter. A man’s venom poisons himself more than his victim.
Charles Buxton (1823-1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer, politician
Notes of Thought #560 (1873)
(Source)
Noise isn’t authority, and there’s no sense in ripping and roaring and cussing around the office when things don’t please you. For when a fellow’s given to that, his men secretly won’t care a cuss whether he’s pleased or not. They’ll jump when he speaks, because they value their heads, not his good opinion. […] One of the first things a boss must lose is his temper — and it must stay lost. […] The world is full of fellows who could take the energy which they put into useless cussing of their men, and double their business with it.
George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937) American journalist, author, magazine editor
Old Gorgon Graham: More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, ch. 12 (1903)
(Source)
Whenever you feel a warmth of temper rising, check it at once, and suppress it, recollecting it will make you unhappy within yourself, and disliked by others. Nothing gives one person so great advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Francis Eppes (21 May 1816)
(Source)
Often updated as "Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."
If you would not be of an angry temper, then, do not feed the habit. Give it nothing to help it increase. Be quiet at first and reckon the days in which you have not been angry. I used to be angry every day; now every other day; then every third and fourth day; and if you miss it so long as thirty days, offer a of Thanksgiving to God. For habit is first weakened and then entirely destroyed.
Righteous Indignation: Your own wrath as opposed to the shocking bad temper of others.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Roycroft Dictionary (1914)
(Source)
Thou knowest the errors of unripened age,
Weak are its counsels, headlong is its rage.[οἶσθ᾽ οἷαι νέου ἀνδρὸς ὑπερβασίαι τελέθουσι:
κραιπνότερος μὲν γάρ τε νόος, λεπτὴ δέ τε μῆτις.]Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Iliad [Ἰλιάς], Book 23, l. 589ff (23.589-590) [Antilochus to Menelaus] (c. 750 BC) [tr. Pope (1715-20)]
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:
You, more in age
And more in excellence, know well, the outrays that engage
All young men’s actions; sharper wits, but duller wisdoms, still
From us flow than from you.
[tr. Chapman (1611), l. 505ff]
Thou know’st how rash is youth, and how propense
To pass the bounds by decency prescribed,
Quick, but not wise.
[tr. Cowper (1791), l. 729ff]
Thou knowest of what sort are the errors of a youth; for his mind is indeed more volatile, and his counsel weak.
[tr. Buckley (1860)]
Thou know’st the o’er-eager vehemence of youth,
How quick in temper, and in judgement weak.
[tr. Derby (1864)]
Thou dost know
The faults to which the young are ever prone;
The will is quick to act, the judgment weak.
[tr. Bryant (1870)]
Thou knowest how a young man's transgressions come about, for his mind is hastier and his counsel shallow.
[tr. Leaf/Lang/Myers (1891)]
You know how easily young men are betrayed into indiscretion; their tempers are more hasty and they have less judgement.
[tr. Butler (1898)]
Thou knowest of what sort are the transgressions of a man that he is young, for hasty is he of purpose and but slender is his wit.
[tr. Murray (1924), l. 589-90]
It is easy for a youngster to go wrong from hastiness and lack of thought.
[tr. Graves, The Anger of Achilles (1959)]
You know a young man may go out of bounds:
his wits are nimble, but his judgment slight.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1974)]
Well you know how the whims of youth break all the rules.
Our wits quicker than wind, our judgment just as flighty.
[tr. Fagles (1990)]