Colin Powell on anger

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Anybody can become angry⁠—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way⁠—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

Aristotle384–322 BC

I was angry with my friend I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

William Blake1757–1827A Poison Tree (1794), Songs of Experience (1794), A Poison Tree, st. 1In context

• Friendship

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

Gautama Buddha501–501 BC