On Anger, Book 3, Section 1 — In Plain English

Seneca — The Senator

You need to figure out how strong someone's anger is and how fresh it feels. Can you force it back down, or do you have to wait until the first wave passes? If you try to fight it too early, it might sweep away your solutions along with everything else. You have to handle each person differently based on their character. Some people respond to pleading. Others get more arrogant and controlling when you submit to them. You can scare some people out of their anger. Others respond to criticism, or to you admitting you were wrong, or to shame. Sometimes you just have to wait it out — a slow cure for a fast problem. But only use delay when nothing else works.

Seneca — The Senator Original

It is important to know how great and how fresh its strength may be, and whether it can be driven forcibly back and suppressed, or whether we must give way to it until its first storm blow over, lest it sweep away with it our remedies themselves. We must deal with each case according to each man's character: some yield to entreaties, others are rendered arrogant and masterful by submission: we may frighten some men out of their anger, while some may be turned from their purpose by reproaches, some by acknowledging oneself to be in the wrong, some by shame, and some by delay, a tardy remedy for a hasty disorder, which we ought only to use when all others have failed: