Plato once got angry with his slave and couldn't control himself. He immediately ordered the slave to take off his shirt and bare his shoulders for a beating. Plato raised his hand to strike. But then he realized he was angry. He stopped mid-swing and just stood there, frozen with his hand in the air. A friend walked in and asked what he was doing. Plato replied: "I am making an angry man pay for his crime." He stayed in that striking position, amazed at how disgraceful it was for a philosopher to act this way. He forgot all about the slave because he had found someone else who deserved punishment even more — himself.
Plato, when angry with his slave, could not prevail upon himself to wait, but straightway ordered him to take off his shirt and present his shoulders to the blows which he meant to give him with his own hand: then, when he perceived that he was angry, he stopped the hand which he had raised in the air, and stood like one in act to strike. Being asked by a friend who happened to come in, what he was doing, he answered: "I am making an angry man expiate his crime." He retained the posture of one about to give way to passion, as if struck with astonishment at its being so degrading to a philosopher, forgetting the slave, because he had found another still more deserving of punishment.