Weekly Quote: Seneca on Delaying Your Anger

These ancient words from Seneca ask you to remember a foundational part of Stoic philosophy: delaying your reaction to anger offers a few moments to find the correct response. This action can bring clarity in the best cases and, at minimum, may allow you to quiet yourself and mute what could be an unreasoned response.

Try this. It takes practice and will only work some of the time. Yet, when it does, you will feel differently, like you’ve made less of a mistake, and that makes this effort worthwhile.


You can find Letters From a Stoic in both print and audio. Ryan Holiday’s The Lives of the Stoics is also an excellent resource to learn more about Seneca and the other Stoic philosophers.