Here's the problem with anger — it hates being controlled. It gets furious with the truth itself when the truth doesn't go its way. It attacks its victims with screaming, wild noise, and wild gestures. It hurls insults and curses. Reason doesn't act like this. When reason must act harshly, it does so quietly and calmly. It can destroy entire households, wipe out whole families of enemies of the state — wives, children, and all. It can tear down their homes, level them to the ground, and erase the very names of those who threaten freedom. But reason does all this without grinding its teeth or shaking its head. It doesn't do anything unworthy of a judge, whose face should be especially calm and composed when pronouncing an important sentence.
Irascibility, I say, has this fault—it is loth to be ruled: it is angry with the truth itself, if it comes to light against its will: it assails those whom it has marked for its victims with shouting and riotous noise and gesticulation of the entire body, together with reproaches and curses. Not thus does reason act: but if it must be so, she silently and quietly wipes out whole households, destroys entire families of the enemies of the state, together with their wives and children, throws down their very dwellings, levels them with the ground, and roots out the names of those who are the foes of liberty. This she does without grinding her teeth or shaking her head, or doing anything unbecoming to a judge, whose countenance ought to be especially calm and composed at the time when he is pronouncing an important sentence.