Quotes & Sayings About Losing One's Temper

He was kindhearted, in a way. You know the sort of kind heart: it made him uncomfortable more often than it made him do anything; and even when he did anything, it did not prevent him from grumbling, losing his temper and swearing (mostly to himself). — J.R.R. Tolkien

Oh, ye've a temper,' said Archie consideringly. 'And ye had a rare old time losing it, and ye were like enough justified at that. But take a thought, too. Are ye to accuse Graham Malett in the law courts from the flat o' a bier-claith, or on two sticks like a wife wi' Arthretica? If ye're tae walk upright like the fine, testy gentleman ye are, ye'll need some nursing, I'd say. So I fear Guthrie and I had best bide. — Dorothy Dunnett

Reason is God's crowning gift to man, and you are right
To warn me against losing mine. I cannot say
I hope that I shall never want to say! - that you
Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men
Who can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful.
You are not in a position to know everything
That people say or do, or what they feel:
Your temper terrifies them - everyone
Will tell you only what you like to hear. — Sophocles

The truly educated can listen to any view without losing their temper or self-confidence. — Robert Frost

How cruel - to forbid people to want what they think is good for them. And yet that's just what you won't let them do when you get angry at their misbehavior. They're drawn toward what they think is good for them. - But it's not good for them. Then show them that. Prove it to them. Instead of losing your temper. — Marcus Aurelius

A true story. One afternoon when our son, Richard, was in fifth grade, my wife called me at work to say he had received a one-day suspension for losing his temper during recess. Because we both worked, this was more of a punishment for us than it was for Richard. He hated going to school anyway. I called the school immediately and attempted to reason with the principal. She refused to understand my point of view, and by the time I finished yelling at her, she had suspended Richard for two more days. — Tim Shortridge

There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. There was never anything to be gained by that. — Joe Abercrombie

Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one's temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

A man with wife and daughters has no place losing his temper. — David Gemmell

Anger is the ultimate troublemaker. I feel you can express a strong disapproval or dislike of an object without losing your temper. — Dalai Lama

When you lose your temper, you lose yourself - on the mat as well as in life. — Joe Hyams

People are essentially losing their temper for things that have nothing to do with the act of driving. — Marc Edwards

I'm sorry for losing my temper following the race, but after a day or two of looking back at the race it's easy to realize that it's just not that big of a deal compared with what the people of the Gulf Coast are still going through. — Robby Gordon

Losing his temper was a luxury he rarely permitted himself, but for the past week he'd been invaded by a sullen gloom that weighted every thought and heartbeat, and made him want to lash out at anyone within reach.
All because of a woman he had known better than to want.
Lady Helen Ravenel... a woman who was cultured, innocent, shy, aristocratic. Everything he was not. — Lisa Kleypas

I've got a temper if I need it. Nothing wrong with losing your temper, if it's for the right reasons. — Alex Ferguson

Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes - gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. — Charles Dickens

Granny Weatherwax always held that you ought to count up to ten before losing your temper. No one knew why, because the only effect of this was to build up the pressure and make the ensuing explosion a whole lot worse. — Terry Pratchett

I worry that by losing my temper so much and being so harsh and yelling so much that, by example, I will have taught my daughters to be that way, and I'm now constantly telling them not to do that. — Amy Chua

It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first. — Jackie Robinson

There's nothing wrong with losing your temper for the right reasons. — Jock Stein

Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.
"It makes me feel as if something had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

If you lose your temper, you lose! — Richard Diaz

It may, indeed, be assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith. — Anthony Trollope

Pop was her ideal of how a man should be, brave, gentle, comic, never losing his temper, never bragging, never complaining except in a joke, tolerant, understanding, intelligent, drinking a little too much as a good man should, and, to her eyes, very handsome. — Ernest Hemingway,

Probably I have more phobias, fear and eccentricities than I would care to admit. I don't think I'm in danger of losing my mind, but I do often question my own behavior. I have a very bad temper, and it's not always healthy for me and for others. I make my way in the world more difficult, and I could do with a little more yoga. — Denis O'Hare

Because even if they are doing something immoral, I'd be an idiot to start criticizing them for it if I wasn't perfect myself. Smoking is self-destructive. Drinking is self-destructive. Losing your temper and yelling at people is wrong. Lying is wrong. Cheating is wrong. Stealing is wrong. But people do that stuff all the time. Soon as I figure out how to be a perfect human being, then I'm qualified to go lecture other people about how they live their lives. — Jim Butcher

At Last a Real Cure A woman goes to the Doctor, worried about her husband's temper. The Doctor asks: "What's the problem? The woman says: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every day my husband seems to lose his temper for no reason. It scares me." The Doctor says: "I have a cure for that. When it seems that your husband is getting angry, just take a glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don't swallow it until he either leaves the room or goes to bed and is asleep." Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn. The woman says: "Doctor that was a brilliant idea! Every time my husband started losing it, I swished with water. I swished and swished, and he calmed right down! How does a glass of water do that?" The Doctor says: "The water itself does nothing. It's keeping your mouth shut that does the trick... — Steve Mihaly

Temper is the one thing you can't get rid of by losing it. — Jack Nicklaus

For once I'm not the guy losing my temper all the time. — James Gandolfini

I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman. — Mark Twain

The way of the warrior is the way of knowing. If that knowledge requires you to use anger, then you use anger, but you cannot wrest forth knowledge by losing your temper. Pain and frustration will be your only reward if you try. — Christopher Paolini

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. — Robert Frost

He was a bricklayer; for fifty years, in Italy, America, France, then again in Italy, and finally in Germany, he had laid bricks, and every brick had been cemented with curses. He cursed continuously, but not mechanically; he cursed with method and care, acrimoniously, pausing to find the right word, frequently correcting himself and losing his temper when unable to find the word he wanted; then he cursed the curse that would not come. — Primo Levi

I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; — Leo Tolstoy

Often, you know.' 'I don't know,' said the Caterpillar. Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. 'Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar. 'Well, I should like — Lewis Carroll

My father taught me that losing your temper is a self-indulgent act. — Hugh Jackman

I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper. — Albert Einstein

Anger has its place, but it will not serve you here, the way of the warrior is the way of knowing. Of that knowledge requires you to use anger, then you use anger, but you cannot wrest forth knowledge by losing your temper. — Christopher Paolini

Follow the path of serenity. Why lose your temper if by losing it you offend God,
trouble your neighbor and in the end have to set things aright anyway? — Mother Teresa