Anger causes nothing but destruction.
One should uplift one’s lower self by the higher self. One should not demean or downgrade oneself. For the self is verily one’s friend and one’s enemy. (Bhagavadgita, 6.5)
To him who has conquered his lower self by his higher self, the self acts like a friend. But to him who has not conquered his lower self, the self is always hostile and functions like an enemy. (Gita, 6.6)
The outer layers of cakes are made of rice flour, but inside they are stuffed with different ingredients. The cake is good or bad according to the quality of its stuffing. So all human bodies are made of one and the same material, yet men are different in quality according to the purity of their hearts. (Sri Ramakrishna)
Free! We who cannot for a moment govern our own minds, nay, cannot hold our minds on a subject, focus it on a point to the exclusion of everything else for a moment! Yet we call ourselves free. Think of it! We cannot do as we know we ought to do even for a very short space of time. Some sense-desire will crop up, and immediately we obey it. Our conscience smites us for such weakness, but again and again we do it, we are always doing it. We cannot live up to a high standard of life, try as we will. The ghosts of past thoughts, past lives, hold us down. All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the sense-life—the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world. (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 6.30)
The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us, and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work. The energy which ought to have gone out as work is spent as mere feeling, which counts for nothing. …The man who gives way to anger, or hatred, or any other passion, cannot work; he only breaks himself to pieces, and does nothing practical. It is the calm, forgiving, equable, well-balanced mind that does the greatest amount of work. (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda 2.293)
There is nothing wrong about doing work; otherwise, how can one have purification of mind? It is when one works that one is tested: how much craving for the result of action does one have; how desireless is the mind; how much selfishness has gone; and how much still remains. All this can be known only through the performance of work. When divine love dawns in the heart, one no longer considers work as mere work—it turns into worship. That is real devotion. (Swami Turiyananda)