He said, "I thought I had a better use for my head." Byron could write poetry easily, for it was merely indulging his natural propensity; but to curb his temper, soothe his discontent, and control his animal appetites was a very different thing.

At all events, it seemed so great to him that he never seriously attempted self-conquest.
Let every youth who would not be shipwrecked on life's voyage cultivate this one great virtue, "self-control." There is nothing so important to a youth starting out in life as a thoroughly trained and cultivated will; everything depends upon it.

If he has it, he will succeed; if he does not have it, he will fail.
"The first and best of victories," says Plato, "is for a man to conquer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile." "Silence," says Zimmerman, "is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy." "He is a fool who cannot be angry," says English, "but he is a wise man who will not." Seneca, one of the greatest of the ancient philosophers, said that "we should every night call ourselves to account.

What infirmity have I mastered to-day?
what passion opposed?
what temptation resisted?
what virtue acquired ?" and then he follows with the profound truth that "our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift." If you cannot at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a hard master.
It does no good to get angry.

Some sins have a seeming compensation or apology, a present gratification of some sort, but anger has none.