Quote
“Anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is not easy.”— Aristotle, quoted by Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence · Emotional Intelligence →
Why it was said
Daniel Goleman opens Emotional Intelligence with this line from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. He uses it to set the book's claim: the question is not whether to have emotions but whether they are governed with intelligence.
What it actually means
The sentence separates feeling from the skill of feeling well. Anger is not the failure; anger at the wrong target, in the wrong amount, at the wrong moment is. Goleman's book argues that this skill, the management of one's own emotions and the reading of others', predicts how a life goes at least as well as the intelligence that tests measure, and that it can be learned.
How to use it
- 1When you are angry, run the five tests before acting: right person, right degree, right time, right purpose, right way.
- 2Keep a short log of the times anger served you and the times it cost you; the pattern is the lesson.