Evagrius Ponticus: On the Right and Wrong use of Anger

 Anger is given to us so that we might fight against the demons and strive against every pleasure. Now it happens that the angels suggest spiritual pleasure to us and the beatitude that is consequent upon it so as to encourage us to turn our anger against the demons. But these, for their part, draw our anger to worldly desires and constrain us - contrary to our nature - to fight against our fellow men to the end that, blinded in mind and falling away from knowledge, our spirit should become a traitor to virtue.

+Evagrius Ponticus, from The Praktikos, #24

Evagrius Ponticus: Reading, vigils, and prayer

Reading, vigils and prayer - these are the things that lend stability to the wandering mind. Hunger, toil and solitude are the means of extinguishing the flames of desire. Turbid anger is calmed by the singing of Psalms, by patience and almsgiving. But all these practices are to be engaged in according to due measure and at the appropriate times. What is untimely done, or done without measure, endures but a short time. And what is short lived is more harmful than profitable.
Evagrius Ponticus, from The Praktikos, #15