Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

The saying treats anger as a brief form of insanity: in the heat of passion, judgment is impaired and one acts against one’s own long-term interests and values. Its practical counsel is a classic self-mastery ethic—emotions are inevitable, but they must be governed before they become governing. The second clause (“control your passion or it will control you”) frames anger as a struggle for agency: either the person directs the emotion through restraint, reflection, or delay, or the emotion directs the person through impulsive speech and action. The moral implication is that character is shown not by never feeling anger, but by refusing to surrender responsibility to it.