The Stoic Seneca on Anger
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Essay substantially revised on 17 August 2026.
After his brother Novatus asked him ‘how anger may be soothed’, the Stoic philosopher Seneca penned his famous treatise, On Anger (c. 45 CE).
Anger, says Seneca, is a bad habit that people tend to pick up from their parents. When a child who was raised at Plato’s house was returned to his parents and witnessed his father shouting, he said, ‘I never saw this at Plato’s house.’
Anger is like a virus. If we are around angry people, it is hard not to lose our temper, however temperate we may normally be. For this reason alone, we ought to prefer the company of mild, level-headed people. For my urban readers, even wild animals become gentle in the company of the calm (though I wouldn’t rely on it).
Anger Is a Loss of Perspective
We should also resist our egocentric tendency to believe the worst about others. Often, the people at whom we are most liable to get angry are those who are in fact trying to help us—although, of course, not as much as we would like. In their minds, they are only trying to do what they think is best for them, and we, by our anger, are trying to thwart them—which is why they tend to return our anger. If what they are doing is not in their best interests, then we should calmly explain this to them, rather than losing our temper and, with it, their ear.
As for the things that anger us, they are often mere slights or annoyances that do not do us any real harm. Luxury debilitates the mind and undermines our sense of perspective, so that pampered people (like us) are more prone to anger over trivial things.
Events are events. It is we who attach emotion to them. And it is far easier to adjust our expectation of the world than to change the world itself.
Anger Does Us More Harm than Good
Even if someone murders our father or child, anger is not required to honour their memory, obtain justice, and, more generally, do the right and honourable thing. Recognising an injustice and becoming angry about it need not be one and the same thing—and, in fact, superadded anger may impair our ability to address the injustice. Many people think that anger is a show of virtue or, at least, a spur to virtue; at most, it can substitute for virtue in those who are lacking it.
Anger and grief only add to our existing pain, and often do more harm than the things out of which they arise. It is out of anger that Alexander the Great killed the friend who had saved his life—that great conqueror of kings, himself brought down by anger. And it is also out of anger that Medea slaughtered her innocent children. Will you suffer a stroke or die from a heart attack because someone said something out of place?
As Horace put it, anger is a short-lived madness (ira furor brevis est). Whereas other vices bend the mind, anger overthrows it. The angry person is like a collapsing building that destroys itself in the very act of bearing down upon others.
Anger Is Contrary to Our Nature
Being social animals, like ants, bees, and wolves, human beings are born to provide and receive assistance. Anger, which, on the contrary, seeks to arrogate and annihilate, is so inimical to our nature that some angry people have benefited simply from looking in a mirror.
Those who are unwilling to check their anger and work with others for the common good are like wasps in a beehive, gorging on the honey of others without contributing any of their own.
For all these reasons, we should never get angry. We might feel the beginnings of anger, but then reject this passionate impression that threatens to overthrow our reason and the tranquillity and dignity that follows in its train. We may not be able to prevent the first flash of irritation, any more than we can prevent ourselves from flinching at a sudden noise. Our freedom begins with what we do next, as we recognise anger for what it is: irrational and, often, unfair.
Now Here’s Your Answer
To regain perspective when angry, to reclaim our sanity, we might ask ourselves:
- Am I expecting too much out of the world?
- How is getting angry going to help me?
- Who will remember this in a day or in a year, or in a hundred years?
But the surest cure for anger is delay, because it gives us a much better chance of rejecting our passionate impression.
Before rising into the first emperor of Rome, Augustus—then Octavian—was taught by the Stoic philosopher Athenodorus Cananites at Apollonia, in modern-day Albania, where he received the news of Julius Caesar’s demise. Athenodorus followed Octavian back to Rome and remained by his side as he deftly achieved that which his great uncle Caesar could or did not. When, on account of his old age, Athenodorus begged to be dismissed and was at last taking leave of Augustus, he reminded him, ‘Whenever you get angry, Caesar, do not say or do anything before repeating to yourself the twenty-four letters of the alphabet.’
At this, the emperor seized Athenodorus by the hand and said, ‘I still have need of your presence here.’
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Neel Burton is author of Stoic Stories: Stoicism by Its Best Stories. Through the lives of Zeno, Cleanthes, Cato, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and many others, Stoic Stories introduces the philosophy not through abstract theory, but through the memorable stories that have kept it alive for more than two thousand years.
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