‘Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun.  To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter controntations still to come, to savour to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back; in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.  The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.  The skeleton at the feast is you.’  (Frederick Buechner, Q in Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, 19)

Anyone can be angry.  That’s easy.  But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, and in the right way – that’s mighty difficult.

A man who can’t control his temper is like a city without defenses.  (Jewish Proverb)

Anger is a wind
which blows out the
lamp of the mind.

When angry, take a lesson from technology; always count down before blasting off.

A man that does not know how to be angry does not know how to be good.  A man that does not know how to be shaken to his heart’s core with indignation over things evil is either a fungus or a wicked man.  (H.W. Beecher)

One of the worst cases of hatred I have ever come across is found in a will written in 1935 by a Mr. Donohoe  to his two daughters.  It says, “Unto my two daughters, Frances Marie and Denise Victoria, by reason of their unfilial attitude toward a doting father, … I leave the sum of $ 1.00 to each and a father’s curse. May their lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness, and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering malignant and torturous nature..The last line of the will is so vicious I shudder to quote it.  It reads, “May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the condemned for etemity.”  Such utter contempt didn’t develop in a day.  It had to grow over a long period of time. We should never allow our minds to become fertile soil for the seeds of hatred. We would do ourselves a world of good by heeding the words of Paul, “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (Eph. 4:26).

Beware the fury of a patient man.  (John Dryden)

See Prov 15:1; 16:32; 29:11; James 1:19f; Eph 4:26.

For righteous anger, see Jn 2:15f.