100 Anger Quotes To Help You Spot and Manage Your Emotions (2024)

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they feel this basic human emotion of anger. Of course the root of it all may stem from fear, pain, frustration or other personal reasons. Truth be said, a fearful reaction to uncertainty or losing a job are definitely quite common. Many others are guided down this road by stress and financial difficulties. However, the way you decide to deal with it can either make you or break you. Instead of blowing a fuse, you can use anger and turn it into a motivating way to solve problems and express feelings. Many famous individuals have experienced and worked on this rage which has led them to the positive, and they have expressed their feelings through these anger quotes.

What they have also found is that resentment will get you nowhere. Anger can also actually help get rid of situations that are bad for everyone. So instead of letting off steam, simply make good use of it. Avoiding any confrontation when angry is step one and remaining in this state is only hurtful. Read on to find an extraordinary selection of quotes by renowned celebrities such as presidents, activists, Greek philosophers and more. Their words of wisdom will help you, friends and loved ones to take that deep breath before acting on anything. Nothing good comes from flying off the deep end.

Table of Contents

1. Quotes About Anger To Help You Manage This Powerful Feeling
2. Wise Short Quotes About Anger and Overcoming It
3. Relationship Anger Quotes
4. Positive Anger Quotes About When this Feeling is Useful
5. Anger Quotes By Famous People
6. Poetic and Literature Quotes About Anger

Quotes About Anger To Help You Manage This Powerful Feeling

• The best fighter is never angry. Lao Tzu
• The greatest remedy for anger is delay. Thomas Paine
• How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. Marcus Aurelius
• For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Anger resolves nothing it only puts up your blood pressure. Catherine Pulsifer
• When anger rises, think of the consequences. Confucius
• I feel an army in my fist. Friedrich von Schiller
• Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. Mark Twain
• There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot. Plato
• Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean. Maya Angelou
• Anger is the emotion that separates. It cuts everything right in two. Charlotte Joko Beck
• When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred. Thomas Jefferson
• If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. Chinese Proverb
• Anger, resentment, envy, and self-pity are wasteful reactions. They greatly drain one’s time. They sap energy better devoted to productive endeavors. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. Robert G. Ingersoll
• Where there is anger there is always pain underneath. Eckhart Tolle
• Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Yoda, ‘The Phantom Menace’
• Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Speak the truth do not become angered and give when asked, even be it a little. By these three conditions one goes to the presence of the gods. Buddha
• Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth. Buddha
• Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9
• 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. Aristotle
• Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people…but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us. Steve Maraboli
• Let today be the day you finally release yourself from the imprisonment of past grudges and anger. Simplify your life. Let go of the poisonous past and live the abundantly beautiful present… today. Steve Maraboli
• Look at someone who is angry. When you see the tension in her, you become frightened, because the bomb in her may explode any minute. Thich Nhat Hanh
• If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return. Deepak Chopra
• Anger corrupts, as weeds choke a field. Be free of anger, and honor those who are also free. Buddha
• Never respond to an angry person with a fiery comeback, even if he deserves it… Don’t allow his anger to become your anger. Bohdi Sanders
• The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present. Barbara De Angelis
• Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life. Joan Lunden
• There are two types of seeds in the mind: those that create anger, fear, frustration, jealousy, hatred and those that create love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Spirituality is germination and sprouting of the second group and transforming the first group. Amit Ray

Wise Short Quotes About Anger and Overcoming It

• The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. Joe Klaas
• Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. Benjamin Franklin
• When angry, count four. When very angry, swear. Mark Twain
• Men in rage strike those that wish them best. William Shakespeare, Othello
• Anger is stupid, and stupidity will kill you more surely than your opponent’s blade. Patricia Briggs
• Even a single moment of anger destroys years of kindness to others. Shantideva
• Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind. Evan Esar
• You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. Buddha
• Nothing can heal anger except compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh
• Anger is a brief madness. Horace
• Anger always comes from frustrated expectations. Elliott Larson
• It is wise to direct your anger towards problems — not people; to focus your energies on answers — not excuses. William Arthur Ward
• Angry people are not always wise. Jane Austen
• Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others—it only changes yours. Shannon Alder
• Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Ambrose Bierce
• A heart filled with anger has no room for love. Joan Lunden
• Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. Phyllis Diller
• Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end. Proverbs 29:11
• Get mad, then get over it. Colin Powell
• An angry word is like a hand grenade thrown into the temple of love. Arthur Samuels
• Do not let your anger lead to hatred, as you will hurt yourself more than you would the other. Stephen Richards
• Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you are. Cherie Carter-Scott
• Feelings are something you have; not something you are. Shannon L. Alder
• A man is about as big as the things that make him angry. Winston Churchill
• If people keep stepping on you, wear a pointy hat. Joyce Rachelle
• Poetry = Anger x Imagination. Sherman Alexie
• A grudge is like being stung to death by one bee. William Walton

Relationship Anger Quotes

• I have heard it said that whining is anger coming out through a very small opening. James Finley
• Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, “What else could this mean? Shannon L. Alder
• If we wish to express anger fully, the first step is to divorce the other person from any responsibility for our anger. Marshall Rosenberg
• Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love. Leo Buscaglia
• I believe that things should be let go once they are discussed. Apology accepted. End of story. Brad Goreski
• Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. Thomas Kempis
• Anger is not power: it is a victim state. When I indulge my anger, I risk damaging myself and destroying a relationship. Hugh Prather
• The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable,
  Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.
  Euripides, Medea
• Angry people want you to see how powerful they are… loving people want you to see how powerful You are. Chief Red Eagle
• 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. Buddha
• Relationship rage is at an all-time high. Maybe it’s just that there are more of us on the planet. All I know is this: Rage is completely painful. Screaming, pushing, shoving, sulking, manipulating, emotional blackmailing, silently smoldering, watching for ways to get even. All rage. And uncontrollable: You never know where it will aim itself. Geri Larkin
• Anger is just anger. It isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It’s like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice. Jim Butcher
• Transformation is my favorite game and in my experience, anger and frustration are the result of you not being authentic somewhere in your life or with someone in your life. Being fake about anything creates a block inside of you. Life can’t work for you if you don’t show up as you. Jason Mraz
• Being unable to control your temper is no less of an illness than being anxious or depressed, and it deserves every bit as much sympathy. John Crawford

Positive Anger Quotes About When this Feeling is Useful

• Expressing anger is necessary. Jenny Holzer
• Anger is the prelude to courage. Eric Hoffer
• There’s nothing wrong with anger provided you use it constructively. Wayne Dyer
• Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. Malcolm X
• It is wise to direct your anger towards problems – not people; to focus your energies on answers – not excuses. William Arthur Ward
• When someone says that I’m angry it’s actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships, which is part of why I’d write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman. Alanis Morissette
• Anger is a valid emotion. It’s only bad when it takes control and makes you do things you don’t want to do. Ellen Hopkins
• Anger is also a beautiful emotion. It’s the emotion of self-care, of self-protection. It is the emotion by which we make ourselves known to others as worthy, valuable human beings. Anger is the way we tell other people that they’ve gone too far, that they’ve crossed the invisible boundary they shouldn’t have crossed if they want to remain in our good graces. Daphne Rose Kingmsa
• You don’t have to chase anger out of you. You allow it to be in you, you embrace it tenderly, and then anger will subside, and the danger is overcome. During the practice you have helped anger, and it will be transformed slowly. This practice enables you to acknowledge your anger with a smile. Thich Nhat Hanh, Transforming Your Anger

Anger Quotes By Famous People

• Generally speaking, if a human being never shows anger, then I think something’s wrong. He’s not right in the brain. Dalai Lama
• When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can’t move forward. Mary J. Blige
• People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining. Stephen Hawking
• The only difference between man and man all the world over is one of degree, and not of kind, even as there is between trees of the same species. Where in is the cause for anger, envy or discrimination? Mahatma Gandhi
• Anger … it’s a paralyzing emotion … you can’t get anything done. People sort of think it’s an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don’t think it’s any of that — it’s helpless … it’s absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers … and anger doesn’t provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever. Toni Morrison
• I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger. Simone de Beauvoir
• It is not the actions of others which trouble us (for those actions are controlled by their governing part), but rather it is our own judgments. Therefore remove those judgments and resolve to let go of your anger, and it will already be gone. How do you let go? By realizing that such actions are not shameful to you. Marcus Aurelius
• When you think you’ve been injured, apply this rule: If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong. Marcus Aurelius
• I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight… I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence. Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

Poetic and Literature Quotes About Anger

• 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 Blake, Songs of Experience
• He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn’t. Stephen King, Misery
• Whenever she felt like crying, she would instead become angry—at someone else or at herself—which meant that it was rare for her to shed tears. Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
• Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves. Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Anger as soon as fed is dead-
  ‘Tis starving makes it fat.
  Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems
• How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him. Frank Herbert, Dune
• Sometimes I think there’s a beast that lives inside me, in the cavern that’s where my heart should be, and every now and then it fills every last inch of my skin, so that I can’t help but do something inappropriate. Its breath is full of lies; it smells of spite. Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

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