On the other hand, getting upset about everything seems like the mark of a weak and miserable mind. It knows how feeble it is. It's like people with sick bodies covered in wounds — they scream at the slightest touch. So anger is mostly a weakness that affects women and children. "But it affects men too." True, because many men have minds like women or children. "But wait — don't angry men sometimes say things that sound like they come from a great mind?" Yes, but only to people who don't know what real greatness looks like. Take that disgusting and hateful saying: "Let them hate me, as long as they fear me." You can tell that was written during Sulla's time. I don't know which was worse — that he wanted to be hated or that he wanted to be feared.
On the other hand, to be constantly irritated seems to me to be the part of a languid and unhappy mind, conscious of its own feebleness, like folk with diseased bodies covered with sores, who cry out at the lightest touch. Anger, therefore, is a vice which for the most part affects women and children. “Yet it affects men also.” Because many men, too, have womanish or childish intellects. “But what are we to say? do not some words fall from angry men which appear to flow from a great mind?” Yes, to those who know not what true greatness is: as, for example, that foul and hateful saying, “Let them hate me, provided they fear me,” which you may be sure was written in Sulla’s time. I know not which was the worse of the two things he wished for, that he might be hated or that he might be feared.