ANGER

~Anger Caused Homer’s Suicide

      Homer, the tale goes, met some boys coming home from a fishing trip. On his asking them of their luck, they replied, “What we caught we threw away; what we didn’t catch, we have.”

      It seems they referred to fleas, not fish, and his inability to guess this so enraged Homer, that he killed himself.

~Anger’s Bad Landing

      People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.

—Will Rogers

~Doubly Angry

      An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason.

—Publicius Syrus

~High Cost Of Anger

      When Sinbad and his sailors landed on one of their tropical islands, they saw high up in the trees coconuts which could quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger. The coconuts were far above the reach of Sinbad and the sailors, but in the branches of the trees were the chattering apes. Sinbad and his men began to throw stones and sticks up at the apes.

      This enraged the monkeys and they began to seize the coconuts and hurl them down at the men on the ground. That was just what Sinbad and his men wanted. They got the apes angry—so that the apes would gather their food for them.

—C. E. Macartney

~Justifying “Quick” Anger

      A woman told Billy Sunday that he had a bad temper, but that it was all over in a minute. He replied, “So is a shotgun, but it blows everything to pieces.”

~Meanness Unjustified

      Remember the end never really justifies the meanness.

—Longview, Wash., News

~“Hostility Index” And Death Rates

      Anger is hazardous to your health.

      In a study conducted by the Gallup Organization and reported in 1994, Philadelphia ranked first among U.S. cities on what was called the “hostility index.” The hostility index was based on a nine-question scale that asked people how they felt about such things as loud rock music, supermarket checkout lines, and traffic jams.

      Other cities on the hostility top five were New York, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit. At the bottom of the hostility index were Des Moines, Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle, and Honolulu.

      Medical experts looking at the results felt it was no coincidence that the cities that rated high on the hostility index also had higher death rates. Commenting on the study, Dr. Redford Williams of Duke University Medical School said, “Anger kills.”

—Craig Brian Larson

Return to "Illustrations Plus" MENU