Anger is one of the most challenging emotions humans experience. In most cases, it arises unexpectedly and causes an internal storm that may trigger an irrational response. If not well managed, anger can wreak havoc in all areas of your life.
It takes being deliberate and training yourself relentlessly to master your anger. Below are some quotes to help you let go of anger and heal.
- “We’re all capable of anything; the only difference is that some of us control our emotions while others are controlled by them.” – Marion Bekoe
- “Don’t hold to anger, hurt, or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.” – Leo Buscaglia
- “It doesn’t pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoken. Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he’ll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn’t say.” – Jules Renard
- “Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.” – James Thurber
- “Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‘yours,’ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.” – Eckhart Tolle
- “Anger makes us feel so isolated.” – Fred Rogers
- “Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” – Aristotle
- “Anger is short madness” – Horace
- “When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response.” – Indra Nooyi
- “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” – Buddha
- “Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” – Ambrose Bierce
- “Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.” – Chérie Carter-Scot
- “Use your anger for good. Anger to people is like gas to the automobile – it fuels you to move forward and get to a better place. Without it, we would not be motivated to rise to a challenge. It is an energy that compels us to define what is just and unjust.” – Arun Gandhi
- “You are not the anger; you are the awareness behind the anger. Realize this, and the anger will no longer control you.” – Eckhart Tolle
- “Anger always comes from frustrated expectations.” – Elliott Larson
- “Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it…Don’t allow his anger to become your anger.” – Bohdi Sanders
- “People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.” – Stephen Hawking
- “There is so much anger buried deep inside me that if I dump them out onto the world, there won’t be any world left. So I chose to turn that anger into strength instead of weakness – I turned that anger into an instrument of creation rather than a weapon of destruction.” – Abhijit Naskar
- “Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, ‘What else could this mean?” – Shannon L. Alder
- “There’s nothing wrong with anger, provided you use it constructively.” – Wayne Dyer
- “Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
- “When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans.” – Margaret J. Wheatley
- “Calm is the best revenge.” – Bangambiki Habyarimana
- “Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.” – Robert Green Ingersoll
- “It is not the actions of others which trouble us, but rather it is our own judgments. Therefore remove those judgments and resolve to let go of your anger, and it will already be gone.” – Marcus Aurelius
- “Anger at oneself is a destructive thing.” – Qui-Gon Jinn
- “If I don’t own my anger, I can be certain that it will own me.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
- “You can’t selectively numb your anger any more than you can turn off all lights in a room and still expect to see the light.” – Shannon L. Alder
- Anger resolves nothing; it only puts up your blood pressure.” – Catherine Pulsifer
- “The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” – Thomas Paine
- “The best fighter is never angry.” – Lao Tzu
- “If it comes, let it come. If it goes, it’s ok; let it go. Let things come and go. Stay calm, don’t let anything disturb your peace, and carry on.” – Germany Kent.
- “Anger is a bad counselor.” – French Prover
- “The opposite of anger is not calmness; it’s empathy.” – Mehmet Oz
- “If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” – Chinese Proverb
- “Anger doesn’t demand action. When you act in anger, you lose self-control.” – Joe Hyams
- “Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.” – Chérie Carter-Scott
- “Holding on to anger, resentment, and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache, and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.” – Joan Lunden
- “When a fool reacts on you, and you then respond, then you are the fooled. Always keep your pace between them and mind your business.” – Kwaku Okyere
- “It is serious, and you won’t get control of your anger unless you mean business about sorting this difficulty out, once and for all. You will need to be committed to change, but it can be done.” – John Crawford
- “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” – Buddha
- “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” – Mark Twain
- “Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger, and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
- “Expressing anger is a form of public littering.” – Willard Gaylin
- “The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.” – Joseph Joubert
- “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha
- “Anger is the most impotent of passions. It affects nothing it goes about and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.” – Carl Sandbur
- “Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” – Roy T. Bennett
- “Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.” – Baltasar Gracian
- “Anger is a fuel. You need fuel to launch a rocket. But if all you have is fuel without any complex internal mechanism directing it, you don’t have a rocket. You have a bomb.” – Gil Schwartz
- “As far as having peace within myself, the one way I can do that is forgiving the people who have done wrong to me. It causes more stress to build up anger. Peace is more productive.” – Rodney King
- “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda
- “The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.” – Barbara De Angelis
- “A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.” – Winston Churchill
- “The strong man is not the good wrestler; the strong man is the only one who controls himself when he is angry.” – Prophet Muhammad
- “The blunderer who expects to receive a searing lash of someone’s rage but instead receives a breeze of their tranquility is swamped immediately with unfathomable shame and misery.” – Dr. Anhad Kaur Suri
- “I realized that if my thoughts immediately affect my body, I should be careful about what I think. Now, if I get angry, I ask myself why I feel that way. If I can find the source of my anger, I can turn that negative energy into something positive.” – Yoko Ono
- “When anger rises, think of the consequences.” – Confucius
- “Anger is stupid, and stupidity will kill you more surely than your opponent’s blade.” – Patricia Briggs
- “There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.” – Plato
- “If anger is fire, forgiveness is water. When fire gets out of control, use plenty of water.” – Ronit Baras
- “He who angers you conquers you.” – Elizabeth Kenny
- “There should be anger management classes for those of us who bottle it up.” – Joyce Rachell
- “When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can’t move forward.” – Mary J. Blige
- “The development of genuine, open-minded patience may very well lead one to also examine one’s experience of anger and its root causes.” – Allan Lokos
- “I was very fortunate to play sports. All the anger in me went out. I had to do what I had to do. If you stay angry all the time, then you really don’t have a good life.” – Willie Mays
- “To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.” – Alexander Pope
- “Not being outraged by anything is a superpower.” – James Pierce
- “Do not let your anger lead to hatred, as you will hurt yourself more than you would the other.” – Stephen Richards
- “For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Anger is temporary, but words said in anger aren’t.” – Marion Bekoe
- “Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp’s nest.” – Pope Paul VI
- “Anger doesn’t solve anything. It builds nothing, but it can destroy everything.” – Unknown
- “Anger is momentary madness, so control your passion, or it will control you.” – Horace
- “Follow the fragrance of your desires. You will discover the roots of your anger hidden in them.” – Sukant Ratnakar
- “If it won’t matter in 5 years, don’t spend more than 5 minutes getting angry about it.” – Unknown
- “Anger is only one letter short of danger.” – Popular Saying
- “Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.” – Eward G. Bulwer-Lytton
- “There’s nothing wrong with anger, provided you use it constructively.” – Wayne Dyer
- “Buddha was asked, “What have you gained from meditation?” He replied, “Nothing! However. Buddha said, let me tell you what I lost: anger, anxiety, depression, insecurity, fear of old age and death.” – Dalai Lama
- “The smarter you get, the more you realize anger is not worth it.” – Maxime Lagacé
- “I lose my temper, but it’s all over in a minute,’ said the student. ‘So is the hydrogen bomb,’ I replied. ‘But think of the damage it produces!” – George Sweeting
- “Anger is a bad advisor.” – Czech Proverb
- “If you kick a stone in anger, you’ll hurt your own foot.” – Korean Proverb
- “Anger does not solve problems – anger only makes things worse. I go by the old saying, ‘Don’t make important decisions when you’re angry.” – Lionel Sosa
- “Patience, there are situations in which patience works the best. Anger won’t help you in any way; in fact, it will only make you worse” – Neelam Saxena
- “When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “When you want to become free, your righteousness and anger are much less interesting than they used to be.” – Ram Dass
- “Getting angry in a stressful situation is like trying to clean something with dirt.” – Urbanky Aurel Petru
Note down the quotes that inspire you the most in your journal and refer to them whenever you need some inspiration on anger management or encouragement to stay calm in agitating circumstances.
