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    How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management
    How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management
    How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management
    Audiobook2 hours

    How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management

    Written by Seneca

    Narrated by P.J. Ochlan

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    In his essay "On Anger" (De Ira), the Roman Stoic thinker Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD) argues that anger is the most destructive passion: "No plague has cost the human race more dear." This was proved by his own life, which he barely preserved under one wrathful emperor, Caligula, and lost under a second, Nero. This splendid new translation of essential selections from "On Anger," presented with an enlightening introduction, offers listeners a timeless guide to avoiding and managing anger.

    Drawing on his great arsenal of rhetoric, including historical examples (especially from Caligula's horrific reign), anecdotes, quips, and soaring flights of eloquence, Seneca builds his case against anger with mounting intensity. Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, he paints a grim picture of the moral perils to which anger exposes us, tracing nearly all the world's evils to this one toxic source. But he then uplifts us with a beatific vision of the alternate path, a path of forgiveness and compassion that resonates with Christian and Buddhist ethics.

    Seneca's thoughts on anger have never been more relevant than today, when uncivil discourse has increasingly infected public debate. Whether seeking personal growth or political renewal, listeners will find, in Seneca's wisdom, a valuable antidote to the ills of an angry age.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    TranslatorJames S. Romm
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9781684571239
    Author

    Seneca

    The writer and politician Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE) was one of the most influential figures in the philosophical school of thought known as Stoicism. He was notoriously condemned to death by enforced suicide by the Emperor Nero.

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    Reviews for How to Keep Your Cool

    4.5/5

    176 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Excellent book that I have ever read. I will re-read it again.
    • 4/5
      Love Seneca! It always amazes how relevant these essays still are today.
    • 5/5
      This was an amazing teaching on managing anger forever!
    • 5/5
      Everyone should read. It's honestly important in the present day.
    • 3/5
      Very interesting writing, but the reading falls unnecessarily flat. Worth a listen all the same.
    • 5/5
      Timeless. It feels like this book is talking directly to me at times. It isn’t that serious. You care too much. They don’t care. Only certain people are willing to accept uncensored criticism.
    • 4/5
      This is a good modern translation of selections from Seneca. It serves as a good introductory text.
      The notes are useful to understand the context.