“It is not that I do not get angry. I don't give vent to my anger. I cultivate the quality of patience as angerlessness, and generally speaking, I succeed. But I only control my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant practice.”
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Probable attribution
This saying is widely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but the attribution is not supported by a reliable primary source.
Likely origin: Harijan, 11 May 1935, p. 98 (in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi).
About this quote
Controlling anger isn't the same as never feeling it — the surge still arrives, but the reflex to unload it can be starved through practice until patience becomes the default. Like any habit, it's built by repetition rather than a clever trick: catching the impulse again and again until restraint runs on its own.
When to use it
- A driver cut off in traffic notices the flash of rage, breathes, and lets it pass instead of leaning on the horn.
- A parent feels temper spike at a spilled drink and answers evenly, a response drilled over many small spills.
- An employee reads an insulting email, waits an hour before replying, and the habit gradually replaces the hot retort.