A passage from Seneca
Seneca, On Anger III.12
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We should allow the wrongdoer to explain himself. Often what we take to be an insult is not one; often praise is hidden under a rough word.
Related passages
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Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
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Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, 'I have been harmed.' Take away the complaint, and the harm is taken away.
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It is a man's special privilege to love even those who wrong him.