Seneca's treatise on anger presents it as a bad habit learned from parents and a communicable disease affecting temperate individuals. He emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with calm people to counter anger's influence. Seneca advises against assuming the worst in others, particularly those attempting to offer help, and notes that anger often arises from minor annoyances that do not harm us. He suggests that even in extreme situations, such as the murder of a loved one, anger is unnecessary for justice and honor.
Anger is a bad habit that people tend to pick up from their parents. When a child who was raised at Plato's house was returned to his parents and witnessed his father shouting, he said, 'I never saw this at Plato's house.'
Anger is a communicable disease. If we are around angry people, it is hard not to lose our temper, however temperate we may normally be.
We should also resist our egocentric tendency to believe the worst about others. Often, the people at whom we are most liable to get angry are those who are in fact trying to help us.
Even if someone murders our father or child, anger is not required to honour their memory, obtain justice, and, more generally, do the right and honourable thing.
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