Quote of the Day: Alfred A. Montapert on Time & Perspective

We’re taught that anger is cleansing, that a good blowup “gets it out of your system.” But what if the opposite is true: that every flare-up doesn’t purge anything, it pollutes. That’s the sharp, unsettling logic behind Alfred A. Montapert’s warning: “Every time you get angry, you poison your own system.”

Montapert isn’t moralizing; he’s describing a mechanism. Anger is not just an opinion with volume, it’s a biological event. The body interprets rage as threat: heart rate climbs, blood pressure tightens, and stress chemicals flood the bloodstream. This surge once helped humans survive immediate danger. In modern life, where the “threat” is often an email, traffic, or a remembered insult, the same reaction becomes a slow leak of health.

The poison is also psychological. Anger narrows the mind into a single, glowing story: I’ve been wronged; therefore I’m right. It trains perception to scan for enemies, not evidence. Over time, the habit corrodes judgment, invites impulsive decisions, and turns relationships into tribunals. The cost isn’t only to the person you lash out at, it’s to your sleep, your digestion, your attention span, your ability to repair. Even righteous anger can be real and still be ruinous if it becomes your default language of leadership and self-protection.

Philosopher and self-help thinker Alfred A. Montapert built a body of motivational writing around personal responsibility, the unglamorous, daily work of governing your inner weather before it governs you.

So here’s the practice for this May Monday: when anger rises, treat it like smoke, not fuel. Step back, breathe, name the true need underneath it, and choose a response that protects your future. That’s not suppression; it’s resilience, the refusal to self-administer a toxin and call it relief.