Emotions are what prevent you from seeing what’s actually happening, until you can no longer resist the truth of what’s happening, until it becomes too sudden, and then you’re forced into suffering; which is sort of a breaking of this fantasy that you had put together.

I have learned over the years that the higher the level of emotion, the lower the level of reasoning. For example, if your emotions are at the highest level of 10, your ability to reason is at a 0. If it’s a 9 then your reasoning is a 1. I am not suggesting that emotions don’t have their place, but taking actions based purely on emotions is dangerous and could cost you everything.

Anger is the most destructive of emotional responses, for it clouds your vision the most.

Intellect is the light which illuminates its path, and without this light, emotion changes back and forth. In fact, if emotions prevail over the intellect, it is able to obscure the light and distort the picture of the entire world…. Emotional stirrings need the control of reason and the direction of the will.

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

One problem we face today is that consequentialists make a virtue of having emotions cloud our judgments, not only to avoid hurt feelings but because emotion is seen as a sign of authenticity.

When we respond without reasoning, we’re more likely to make mistakes that seem obvious in hindsight. In fact, when we respond emotionally, we often don’t even realize that we’re in a position that calls for thinking at all.

How difficult it is to reach anything approaching a moderate and relatively calm point of view in the midst of one's emotions.

You like to imagine yourself in control of your fate, consciously planning the course of your life as best you can. But you are largely unaware of how deeply your emotions dominate you. They make you veer toward ideas that soothe your ego. They make you look for evidence that confirms what you already want to believe. They make you see what you want to see, depending on your mood, and this disconnect from reality is the source of the bad decisions and negative patterns that haunt your life. Rationality is the ability to counteract these emotional effects, to think instead of react, to open your mind to what is really happening, as opposed to what you are feeling. It does not come naturally; it is a power we must cultivate, but in doing so we realize our greatest potential.

Emotions are the curse of logic.

When anger rises, think of the consequences.

anger does not, as Melanthius says, — Displace the mind, and then act dismal things; but it absolutely turns the mind out of doors, and bolts the door against it; and, like those who burn their houses and themselves within them, it makes all things within full of confusion, smoke, and noise, so that the soul can neither see nor hear any thing that might relieve it. Wherefore sooner will an empty ship in a storm at sea admit of a pilot from without, than a man tossed with anger and rage listen to the advice of another, unless he have his own reason first prepared to entertain it.

Angry people are not always wise.

Anger, unlike fear or sadness, is a moral emotion. It is “righteous.” It aims not only to end the current trespass but to repair any damage done. It also aims to prevent further trespass by disarming, imprisoning, emasculating, or killing the trespasser.