Aggression

“ The boundary line between the state of abhorrence and the succeeding one of aggression is so faint that it may almost imperceptibly be overpassed, and is apt to become the more obscure with growth of years. ”

“ Aggression and Anger. -- The reaction to danger by aggression is definitely connected with anger. In Man acts of aggression, or acts which have the appearance of aggression, may be expressions of fear. A man in a state of sheer terror may do violence to others who stand in the way of his own safety. There is no doubt that such behaviour occurs, but in the main we may conclude that the primary instinct of aggression is bound up with the emotion of anger. ”

“ It was one of the few unanimities of these parties that every one should be a little odd in appearance, funny about the hair or the tie or the shoes or more generally, and that bursts of violent aggression should alternate with an attitude entirely defensive. ”

“ But the point I wish to emphasize now is that the majority of these negative emotions is caused directly or indirectly by man’s underlying and most distinguishing characteristic—his aggression. It is this trait that most clearly defines him, and it is this trait that is at the root of the frigid woman’s anger, fear of, and feeling of rejection by men. ”

“ There is no aggressive instinct or war motive that is directed exclusively toward the outsider. Certain tendencies toward violence and strife, modified and controlled within the group, become unrestrained when directed toward the stranger. Among these motives are those of sexual rivalry, fear, anger, desire, and the play motive as an expression of any instinctive habits of aggression that may have been phyletically established. ”

“ Each impulse produces a whole harvest of attendant beliefs. The beliefs appropriate to the impulse of aggression may be seen in Bernhardi, or in the early Mohammedan conquerors, or, in full perfection, in the Book of Joshua. ”

“ What is there in personality that makes aggression an injury, and (2) what is it that makes anything one's own? The answer was sought in a theory of natural rights, or of certain qualities inherent in individual human beings and demonstrated by reason to which society, state, and law were bound to give effect. ”

“ We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manœuvre. ”

“ A second mode of reaction is the assumption of an aggressive attitude towards the source of danger with the accompaniment of the affective state of anger. In this case there is not a simple suppression of fear, but its place is taken by another emotion belonging to the instinct of aggression. ”

“ The rude jostle, pretty nearly instinctive with boys coming from school, breaks the peace. There is the quick impulse to resist aggression with violence, particularly on the part of an impulsive unrelenting temper, not adverse to battle. ”

“ A clever brain would know how to manage a quarrel, and yet throw the appearance of the first aggression upon his adversary. Rough and violent as this Friend appears to me, it must be easy to irritate him to unseemly language and vulgar action, and then you fight only in self-defence, which the bishop cannot take amiss. ”

“ Aggression becomes the accredited form of action, and booty serves as prima facie evidence of successful aggression. As accepted at this cultural stage, the accredited, worthy form of self-assertion is contest; and useful articles or services obtained by seizure or compulsion, serve as a conventional evidence of successful contest. ”

“ Try to keep the people from any active aggression, St. Paul; let them stand upon the defensive only, spread amongst them different parties of those whom we have collected, who may give them direction and assistance if needful. ”

“ Why aggression upon a State does not correspond to aggression upon an individual—Our changing conception of collective responsibility—Psychological progress in this connection—Recent growth of factors breaking down the homogeneous personality of States. ”

“ It is, in essence, simply the reaction of a strong and determinate collective sentiment against an act which offends it. It is idle to include such a reaction entirely under the head either of reformation, or of retaliation, or of prevention. An aggression is ipso facto a sign of character, an injury, and a menace; and the reaction against it is equally ipso facto an attempt {221} to affect character, a retaliation against an injury, and a deterrent or preventive against a menace. ”

“ To interpret war, therefore, as an effect of social instinct or herd instinct upon the instincts of aggression or of self-protection, or as the effect of aroused instincts of aggression and self-protection [62] exciting the herd instinct, is unsatisfactory because it is too simple, and erroneously undertakes to explain human life in terms of instinct and also carries biological analogies too far. These views, if we understand them, seem to have the characteristic faults of all purely biological sociology. ”

“ They fought everywhere, up and down, back and forth, until every foot of the floor felt their heavy boots, until each of them was fighting with all of the force that lay in him, fighting with that swelling anger which grows at leaps and bounds when two men strive body to body, when the hot breath of one mingles with the hot breath of the other, when red rage looking out of one pair of eyes sees its reflection in the other. ”

“ A friend of mine, whose nature is somewhat choleric, has told me that when he is seized with anger, he is also possessed by an intense conviction that he could crush and utterly destroy the object of his hostility. ”

“ I tremble with anger because I cannot eat our enemy's flesh, lie down in his skin, chew up his liver, and drink his blood. I would gladly surrender my life a thousand times on the field of battle if I could do these things. ”

“ He felt, without knowing why, the lust of violence which comes to the soldier in battle who wants to run away until the moment when the first shot has been fired, and then—all fear and moral conscience gone in an instant—forges his path with shouts and oaths to where danger is greatest and death most sure. ”

“ Very Large.—Feels the most powerful indignation, amounting even to rage and violence, when thoroughly provoked; and with large or very large Combativeness, acts like a chafed lion, and feels like rushing into the midst of perilous dangers. ”

“ We are insulted—some one slaps our face—the fierce emotion of anger arises and through us surge waves of feeling manifested on the motor side by tensed muscles, rapid heart, harsh breathing, perhaps a general reddening of face and eyes. Instinctively our fists are clenched, a part of the reaction of fight, and it needs but the slightest increase of anger to send us leaping on the aggressor, to fight him perhaps to the death. ”

“ Recently, when you have laid violent hands upon my person, and endangered my life, I said it was violence of temper, not malignity of heart, and I resolved, for your sake and mine, to keep our secret, and to bear with it. ”

“ The fight has begun––such a fight, in its wanton savagery, as might shame even the forest beasts. In a moment the human lusting for the blood of its fellows is let loose, than which there is no more terrible madness on earth. ”

“ Consider the dread which many of us feel at the prospect of a painful interview, our avoidance of an unpleasant scene, our terror of arousing anger. The basis of all this is the primeval dread of personal violence. We are afraid of arousing anger, not because we expect to be assailed by blows and wounds, but because our far-off ancestors expected anger to end in an actual assault. ”

“ I must have been mad to allow myself to be carried away so,” says she, gazing into the glass, which reflects back to her eyes the burning glance by which she appears to interrogate herself. “No violence; violence is the proof of weakness. ”

“ Take care how you make courage to depend in the least on rage. For anger is altogether irrational, and that is not courage which is void of reason.
XXIII. We ought to hold all things here in contempt; death is to be looked on with indifference; pains and labors must be considered as easily supportable. And when these sentiments are established on judgment and conviction, then will that stout and firm courage take place; unless you attribute to anger whatever is done with vehemence, alacrity, and spirit. ”

“ An angry child stamps, or rolls on its back and kicks its heels in the air; and in manhood, 213 anger, first showing itself in frowns, in distended nostrils, in compressed lips, goes on to produce grinding of the teeth, clenching of the fingers, blows of the fist on the table, and perhaps ends in a violent attack on the offending person, or in throwing about and breaking the furniture. ”

“ But unfortunately, when you are dealing with crimes of violence, moral suasion and gentle treatment produce nothing more poignant in the bosom of your adversary than a sensation of amused and derisive contempt. ”

“ When the individuals of a herd or family are excited to a sudden deadly rage by the distressed cries of one of their fellows, or by the sight of its bleeding wounds and the smell of its blood, or when they see it frantically struggling on the ground, or in the cleft of a tree or rock, as if in the clutches of a powerful enemy, they do not turn on it to kill but to rescue it. ”

“ Instead of the frantic gestures of extreme rage, an indignant man unconsciously throws himself into an attitude ready for attacking or striking his enemy, whom he will, perhaps, scan from head to foot in defiance. ”

“ In a few instances, however, he makes known his presence in a more aggressive manner, and seizes his victims with such violence that they cry aloud in terror or rage, and struggle to break away from his merciless grip. ”

“ It is this — it is this which justifies our profession! I, myself, when I see the eye of the accused gleaming with the flash of rage, I feel myself encouraged and elevated. It is no longer a trial, it is a combat ”

“ Violence done will recoil in the face of him that does it: The soul of the transgressors that harbours and plots mischief, and vents it by word and deed, shall eat violence; they shall have their belly full of it. Reward her as she has rewarded thee, Rev. xviii. 6. Every man shall drink as he brews, eat as he speaks; for by our words we must be justified or condemned, Matt. xii. 37. As our fruit is, so will our food be, Rom. ”

“ And know further that I have slain both judges and soldiers, and have committed many crimes for the public good."
Hearing these words, the man of the Lord rose, stretched out his manacled arms in the heavy darkness and cried:
"Ill betide the violent! for violence ever begets violence. Whosoever acts like you is sowing the earth with hate and fury, and his children shall tear their feet with the wayside briars, and serpents shall bite their heel. ”

“ If thou would'st guard thyself, guard against wrath alway;
'Gainst wrath who guards not, him his wrath shall slay.
If a man would guard himself, let him guard against anger; if he do not guard it, anger will kill him. ”

“ The reader may have seen, in a country where personal violence is severely punished, two men shaking their fists in each other’s faces, each trying to provoke the other to strike the first blow; and no fight after all. ”

“ Convulsive anger storms at large; or pale,
And silent, fettles into fell revenge. ”

“ When thwarted while in this condition his temper is likely to flare up at the slightest provocation, whereupon the thin veneer of civilization and restraint is sloughed in a moment, and he becomes savage, impudent, overbearing, and contemptuous toward the stranger, and ready to draw his machete and fight to kill, with friend or foe alike. ”

“ A multitude of swaying human beings, actuated by a maddened revenge, hurtling one against the other, stretching away, whilst those more closely drawn to its sides were in numbers joined in fiery chains, and in the embrace of their blazing bonds expired with the wildest shrieks of agony! ”

“ Every opposite sensation, that with violence the most ungovernable could encounter but to combat, now met in her bosom, elevating her to rapture, harrowing her with terror, menacing even her understanding. ”

“ Some very good, but very weak and timid people talked of your violence, while they seemed to overlook the violent thing which you attacked; but in the minds of all good men there is an inherent abhorrence of baseness like that which has aimed its murderous sting against your life, and, in the present case, this abhorrence has overpowered all the alarms of the good and timid people in whose breasts what is called your violence had excited such alarms. ”

“ In a word, each man, regarding his fellows almost as he regarded animals of different species, might seize the prey of a weaker or yield up his own to a stronger, and yet consider these acts of violence as mere natural occurrences, without the slightest emotion of insolence or despite, or any other feeling than the joy or grief of success or failure. ”

“ The aggressive reaction we associate, or some writers do associate it, with the predatory instinct, practical in its motive, having in part an economic basis. The love of combat which appears especially as a play motive in the child and the youth is expressed as a desire for conquest and in the pleasure of overcoming an enemy. ”

“ Here you choose the strongest among you and furnish him with hidden weapons, with which he endeavors to put out the eyes and stab the veins of your victims. See! this young man is exhausted, and in the rage which your wickedness excited in him, he would have let you kill him if we had not stopped the fight. ”

“ They came crowding round her, mocking and snatching and beating; shrieking with rage and spite, and swearing and snarling, for they knew her for their old enemy, that drove them back into the corners, and kept them from working their wicked wills. ”