Would anyone want to hit an enemy so hard that his hand gets stuck in the wound? Would you want to strike so wildly that you can't recover your balance? That's exactly what anger is like — a weapon you can barely pull back once you've swung it. We're careful to choose light, manageable swords for ourselves. So why don't we avoid these clumsy, uncontrollable impulses of the mind? The only kind of speed we admire is the kind that can stop when told to. Speed that can be guided and slowed from a run to a walk. We know our muscles are diseased when they move against our will. A man must be either old or sick if he runs when he means to walk. Let's remember that our strongest and healthiest mental actions are the ones we control — not the ones that control us.
Does any one wish to strike his enemy so hard, as to leave his own hand in the wound, and not to be able to recover his balance after the blow? yet such a weapon is anger: it is scarcely possible to draw it back. We are careful to choose for ourselves light weapons, handy and manageable swords: shall we not avoid these clumsy, unwieldy, and never-to-be-recalled impulses of the mind? The only swiftness of which men approve is that which, when bidden, checks itself and proceeds no further, and which can be guided, and reduced from a run to a walk: we know that the sinews are diseased when they move against our will. A man must be either aged or weakly who runs when he wants to walk: let us think that those are the most powerful and the soundest operations of our minds, which act under our own control, not at their own caprice.