**The Art of Mastering your Passion**
If possible, oppose the vulgar advances of passion with prudent reflection. This is not difficult for a truely prudent person. The first step toward mastering your passion is to acknowledge that you are in a passion. By this mean you begin the conflict with command over your temper, for one has to regulate one's passion to the exact point that is necessary and no further. This is the art of arts in falling into and getting out of a rage. You should know how and when best to come to a stop--- and it is most difficult to halt while running double time. It is a great proof of wisdom to remain clear-sighted during the paroxysms of rage. Every excess of passion is a disgression from rational conduct. But by this masterful policy reason will never be trangressed, nor pass the bounds of its own wisdom. To keep control of passion one must hold firm the reins of attention; he who can do so will be the first person "wise on horseback", and probably the last.*
* Spanish proverb: "No one is wise on horseback."