Proverbs 14:29

He that is slow to wrath, &c.— If we considered patience only as a moral virtue, or as a gracious sobriety and temper in subduing and regulating our affections and passions, as an absence of that anger and rage and fury, which usually transports us upon trivial occasions, we could not but acknowledge the great advantage that men have by it. Solomon requires this to make a wise man: He that is slow to anger, says he, is of great understanding; and, indeed, there is nothing so much corrupts and destroys and infatuates the understanding as anger and passion; inasmuch as men of very indifferent parts, by the advantage of temper and composure, are much wiser, and fitter for great actions, and are usually more prosperous, than men of more subtle and sublime parts, of more quickness and fancy, with the warmth and choler which many times attend those compositions.