Seneca on Anger: 8 Ways to Cool Down, from His Book On Anger

Essay · By Stephen Pasquini

Seneca thought anger was the most dangerous of all our emotions, and he wrote a whole book about it, On Anger, for his brother Novatus. It’s surprisingly practical. Here’s what Seneca believed anger really is, why he disagreed with Aristotle about it, and eight ways to cool down that still work two thousand years later.

“A brief madness”

Seneca opens On Anger by calling it the most hideous and frenzied of the passions. Other emotions have some calm in them, he says, but anger is all action: it wants to hurt someone, even if it destroys itself in the process. That’s why, he notes, some of the wisest people have called anger a brief madness. Like madness, it forgets decency and family ties, won’t listen to reason, and flares up over trivial things.

He also asks you to look at an angry person: the flushed face, the hard breathing, the clenched hands, the broken speech. No wild animal, he says, looks as frightening as a human being in a rage.

Seneca makes the same point in one of his letters. In Letter 18 he passes along a line from Epicurus:

“Ungoverned anger breeds madness.”

— Seneca, Letter 18 (quoting Epicurus)

Seneca vs. Aristotle: is anger ever useful?

Aristotle thought the right amount of anger, at the right time, was healthy. Seneca quotes him directly: anger is necessary, and no fight can be won without it, as long as it serves as a soldier, not a general.

Seneca didn’t buy it. If anger obeys reason, he argues, it isn’t really anger anymore, because anger’s whole nature is to be stubborn. And if it doesn’t obey reason, it’s a useless, even dangerous ally. A hunter doesn’t need to be angry at the boar. A gladiator who loses his temper drops his guard. Whatever anger can do, reason can do better, without the collateral damage. (For more on how Seneca and Aristotle differed, see What Is Virtue?)

8 ways to cool down, from Seneca

1. Wait

Seneca’s single most important piece of advice: the greatest remedy for anger is delay. Don’t try to beat it in one blow. Just ask it for time, not to forgive the offense yet, but to judge it properly. Its first rush is the fiercest; if you wait, it burns out.

2. Don’t believe everything you hear

A lot of anger, Seneca points out, comes from things we hear secondhand. People exaggerate, misunderstand, or stir trouble on purpose. Be slow to believe what you’re told before you get angry about it. Today, that goes double for screenshots and headlines.

3. Know your bad moments

Seneca noticed what every parent and nurse knows: people who are sick, tired, hungry or thirsty are quicker to snap. He quotes an old saying that a weary man is quarrelsome. When you’re running on empty, postpone the hard conversation and avoid the things that set you off.

4. Act the opposite

Fight anger’s symptoms with their opposites, Seneca says: make your face calmer, your voice softer, your step slower. Your inner state gradually follows your outward behavior. He gives the example of Socrates, who showed he was angry by doing the reverse of what most of us do: he lowered his voice and spoke less. His friends could tell, and he didn’t mind being caught.

5. Catch yourself mid-swing

Seneca tells a story about Plato. Angry with a slave, Plato raised his hand to strike him, then realized he was angry and froze, arm still in the air. When a friend walked in and asked what he was doing, Plato said he was punishing an angry man: himself. It’s a great image for that moment when you notice your temper in time.

6. Let insults go

Someone once hit Cato in the public baths without knowing who he was. When the man later apologized, Cato replied, “I don’t remember being struck.” He thought it better to ignore the insult than to avenge it. Seneca adds that it’s the mark of a great mind to look past injuries, and that the most cutting reply is often to treat the offense as beneath notice.

7. Look in the mirror

The philosopher Sextius observed that some angry people calmed down after catching sight of themselves in a mirror: they didn’t recognize the face looking back. Seneca adds that the mirror shows only a fraction of the ugliness. If we could see the mind itself in a rage, we’d be horrified.

8. Review your day at night

This is Seneca’s most famous practice. Sextius would ask himself each evening: What bad habit did I cure today? What fault did I resist? In what way am I better? Seneca did the same. When the lamp was taken away and his wife, who knew his habit, had gone quiet, he went back over his whole day: where he argued too hotly, where he scolded someone too harshly. Then he forgave himself, and resolved to do better. Anger, he said, calms down when it knows it will have to appear before a judge every night.

What about anger at injustice?

Many modern readers push back here. Isn’t anger sometimes the right response to cruelty or injustice? Seneca’s answer is that you should keep the action and drop the rage. A good person defends the weak and corrects wrongs because it’s right, not because they’re furious, and they do it more effectively with a clear head. You can be fierce for justice and still steady inside.

One honest caution: if anger feels out of control, or if someone else’s anger is putting you in danger, that’s a reason to talk to a doctor, counselor or someone you trust, not just to read more philosophy.

Frequently asked questions

What did Seneca say about anger?

In On Anger, Seneca argues that anger is a “brief madness,” that it is never truly useful, and that reason can do everything anger claims to do without its harm. His main remedies are delay, avoiding triggers, acting calm, and a nightly review of your day.

What is Seneca’s best advice for controlling anger?

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” Give it time before you act, and its first violent impulse will fade.

Did Seneca disagree with Aristotle about anger?

Yes. Aristotle thought anger in the right measure could be useful, “as a soldier, not a general.” Seneca argued that anger can’t be trusted to obey, so it’s better removed than managed.

Go deeper

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

Seneca was born in the year 4 B.C., a time of great opportunity, at Corduba, in Spain, son of the talented rhetorician, Annaeus Seneca. We gather that the family moved to Rome during the boyhood of Lucius, that he was educated for the bar, and that he was soon attracted by the Stoic philosophy, . The last two years of Seneca's life were spent in travelling about southern Italy, composing essays on natural history and relieving his burdened soul by correspondence with his friend Lucilius. These letters are all addressed to Lucilius. The native country of this Lucilius was Campania, and his native city Pompeii or Naples. He was a Roman knight, having gained that position, as Seneca tells us, by sheer industry. Prominent in the civil service, he had filled many important positions and was, at the time when the Letters were written, procurator in Sicily. It may be safely said that the years 63-65 constitute the period of the Letters. There were 124 Letters in all. They ring as true today as they did 1,949 years ago!

See Full Bio