Anger Quote by William Watson

Hate, Watson suggests, isn’t a reflex you spill everywhere; it’s a prized possession you curate. The line’s first trick is its perversely elegant diction: “hold,” “choice,” “lavishing.” These are words for heirlooms, money, affection. By dressing hatred in the language of taste and stewardship, Watson exposes how animosity often masquerades as discernment. People don’t merely hate; they invest in it, ration it, and display it as proof of seriousness.

The subtext is a critique of moral vanity. “Too choice a thing” implies hatred can be treated like a badge of refined judgment: I don’t waste my contempt on just anyone. That posture is familiar in cultures of status and grievance, where selective outrage doubles as self-branding. The line also hints at the seductive discipline of hostility. Hate, carefully “held,” becomes stable identity: a set of enemies that organizes the world, simplifies ethics, and offers community through shared aversion.

Contextually, Watson wrote in an era when public life ran on polemics - party politics, imperial debates, religious and social fracture. The sentence reads like a warning against turning political or cultural antagonism into a connoisseur’s hobby. “Light and careless lavishing” is the real target: the casualness with which hatred can be distributed, as if it were entertainment or sport. The brilliance is that Watson doesn’t plead for sweetness; he indicts the ego behind curated cruelty, where restraint isn’t mercy but exclusivity.