Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
- Source
- Of Revenge
- Date
- 1625
Meaning of “In taking revenge, a man is but even…”
Bacon argues that retaliation merely mirrors the wrong, whereas refusing revenge can restore agency by ending the cycle instead of remaining governed by the injury.
Where does it come from?
Francis Bacon, essay IV ‘Of Revenge,’ represented by Project Gutenberg #575. The frozen catalog sentence capitalizes the extracted opening ‘In’ and ends after ‘superior’; the witness reads it inside the longer sentence beginning ‘Certainly, in taking revenge...’ and continuing ‘for it is a prince's part to pardon.’ It remains early-modern moral and legal-political essay argument rather than modern clinical anger guidance.
