Anger may repast with thee for an hour, but not repose for a night the continuance of anger is hatred, the continuance of hatred turns malice.

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) was a prominent English devotional poet and moral writer whose works—especially his emblem books and collections of “sentences” or maxims—aimed to guide conduct through pithy, scripturally inflected counsel. This saying reflects the early modern Christian commonplace that passions must be checked quickly, echoing biblical admonitions against letting anger linger (often associated with the idea of not letting the sun go down upon one’s wrath). Quarles frequently framed moral psychology as a chain of escalating states: a momentary fault, if indulged, hardens into a settled vice. The aphoristic style and progression from anger to hatred to malice are characteristic of his didactic prose and verse.

The quote distinguishes between transient anger and anger that is nursed. Quarles concedes that anger can “repast” briefly—arrive, be felt, and pass—but warns that it must not be allowed to “repose” overnight, i.e., become a settled occupant of the mind. The moral logic is incremental: prolonged anger calcifies into hatred; sustained hatred further degrades into malice, a deliberate wish to harm. The significance lies in its practical psychology: it treats emotion as something that can be managed by time and attention, and it urges early intervention—reconciliation, forgiveness, or self-restraint—before a passing passion becomes a durable moral disposition.