So if anger can be controlled and given limits, then it isn't really anger anymore — it's something else. Real anger is wild and uncontrollable. But if anger can't be limited, then it's harmful and useless. Either anger isn't anger, or it's worthless. Think about it this way: if someone wants to punish a wrongdoer not because they're burning with rage, but because punishment is the right thing to do, that person isn't angry. They're like a good soldier who follows orders. But passions can't follow orders any more than they can give them.
If, therefore, anger allows limits to be imposed upon it, it must be called by some other name, and ceases to be anger, which I understand to be unbridled and unmanageable: and if it does not allow limits to be imposed upon it, it is harmful and not to be counted among aids: wherefore either anger is not anger, or it is useless: for if any man demands the infliction of punishment, not because he is eager for the punishment itself, but because it is right to inflict it, he ought not to be counted as an angry man: that will be the useful soldier, who knows how to obey orders: the passions cannot obey any more than they can command.