Anger

Imagine your anger to be a kind of wild beast, because it has ferocious teeth and claws, and if you don't tame it, it will devastate all things even corrupting the soul. 1
St. John Chrysostom

There is no sin or wrong that gives a man a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience. 2
St.Catherine of Sienna

It is blasphemy if you pray before God while you are full of anger. 3
St. Ephraem the Syrian

Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy. Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Spirit, and raises man to Heaven. 4
St. Ephraem of Syria

You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow man, do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. 5
Leviticus 19:17-18

Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love. Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause. 6
St. John of Kanty

Avoid slander because it is difficult to retract. Avoid offending anyone for to ask forgiveness is not delightful. 7
St. John Cantius

To harbor no envy, no anger, no resentment against an offender is still not to have charity for him. It is possible, without any charity, to avoid rendering evil for evil. But to render, spontaneously, good for evil -- such belongs to a perfect spiritual love. 8
St Maximus the Confessor

The envious man is cruel, proud, unfaithful, impatient, and quarrelsome; and, what is strange, when this vice gains the mastery, he is no longer master of himself, and he is unable to correct his many faults. If the bond of peace is broken, if the rights of fraternal charity are violated, if truth is altered or disguised, it is often envy that hurries him on to crime. 9
St Cyprian of Carthage

Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door round about my lips: That my heart may not incline to evil words, and seek excuses in sins. 10
Psalm 111:3-4

Where there is schism and anger, there is no place for God. 11
St. Ignatius of Antioch

An evil thought defiles the soul when it is deliberate and consented to. Our Lord placed evil thoughts at the head of all crimes, because they are their principle and source. 12
St. John Baptiste de la Salle

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. 13
St. Frances de Sales

Beware of trying to accomplish anything by force, for God has given every single person free will and desires to constrain none; he merely shows them the way, invites them and counsels them. 14
St. Angela Merici

Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence. 15
St. Basil the Great

Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, it substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts. 16
St. John Chrysostom

Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor. 17
St. John Chrysostom

When we have to reply to anyone who has insulted us, we should be careful to do it always with gentleness. A soft answer extinguishes the fire of wrath. 18
St. Alphonsus Liguori

If we wish to keep peace with our neighbor, we should never remind anyone of his natural defects. 19
St. Philip Neri

When we have to reply to some one who speaks harshly to us, we must always do it with gentleness. If we are angry, it is better to keep silence. 20
St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

Labor to conquer yourself. This victory will assure you a brighter crown in heaven than they gain whose disposition is more amiable. 21
St. Ignatius of Loyola

Just as the intellect of a hungry man imagines bread and that of a thirsty man water, so the intellect of a glutton imagines a pro­fusion of foods, that of a sensualist the forms of women, that of a vain man worldly honor, that of an avaricious man financial gain, that of a rancorous man revenge on whoever has offended him, that of an envious man how to harm the object of his envy, and so on with all the other passions. For an intellect agitated by passions is beset by impassioned conceptual images whether the body is awake or asleep. . . When the desiring aspect of the soul is frequently excited, it implants in the soul a habit of self-indulgence which is difficult to break. When the soul's incensive power is constantly stimulated, it becomes in the end cowardly and unmanly. The first of these failings is cured by long exercise in fasting, vigils and prayer; the second by kindness, compassion, love and mercy. 22
St. Maximos the Confessor

Learn to be silent sometimes for the edification of others, that you may learn how to speak sometimes. 23
St. Vincent Ferrer

It avails nothing to subdue the body, if the mind allows itself to be controlled by anger. 24
Pope St. Gregory the Great

How about the sin, then, of a husband and wife, of a brother and sister, who spew out all sorts of blasphemies upon one another? They would tear out one another's eyes if they could, or even take away each other's lives. . . They do not appreciate what they are saying. Alas! Unhappy people, your curses take effect more often than you think. . . But what should we do then? This is what we should do. We should make use of all the annoyances that happen to us to remind ourselves that since we are in revolt against God, it is but just that other creatures should revolt against us. We should never give others occasion to curse us. . . If something irritating or troublesome happens, instead of loading with curses whatever is not going the way we want it, it would be just as easy and a great deal more beneficial for us to say: "God bless it!" 25
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself. 26
St. Teresa of Avila

How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know. 27
St. Thomas Aquinas

A fox pretends to be asleep; the body and the demons pretend to be chaste. The former is on the watch to seize a bird, the latter to catch a soul. So as long as you live, never trust that clay of which you are made and never depend on it until the time you stand before Christ Himself. And never imagine that abstinence will keep you from falling. It was a being who never ate that was nevertheless thrown out of heaven. 28
St. John Climacus

Most men are like shaving of wood curled around their central emptiness. 29
St. Theophan the Recluse

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, theywill attack him, saying, "You are mad; you are not like us. 30
St. Anthony the Great

Remember, child, that one who truly loves Jesus speaks little and endures much. I command thee on the part of Jesus, never to give thy opinion unless it is asked; never to maintain thy opinion, but be silent at once. When thou hast committed any fault, accuse thyself of it at once without waiting for others to do so …. Remember to guard thine eyes and reflect that the mortified eye shall behold the beauties of Heaven. 31
(The guardian angel of St. Gemma Galgani, asking her to write these words as he said them to her.)

It is not enough to forbid our own tongue to murmur; we must also refuse to listen to murmurers. 32
Venerable Louis de Granada

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. 33
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. 34
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

When an action is blamable, let us excuse the intention. 35
St. Teresa Margaret Redi

Remain calm in tWe must serve our Lord according to his liking and not according to our own. 36
St. Jane Frances de Chantalimes

We must serve our Lord according to his liking and not according to our own. 37
St. Jane Frances de Chantal

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart. 38
St. Frances of Assisi

Just as the surest cure for lying is to unsay a falsehood as soon as we are conscious of having told it, so the best cure for anger is to make immediate reparation in meekness; for, as the proverb says, fresh wounds are always the easiest to heal. 39
St. Francis de Sales