If anger proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury if from a small cause, it is peevishness and so is always either terrible or ridiculous.

Taylor distinguishes two common moral “destinations” of anger. When anger is provoked by something weighty, it tends to swell beyond proportion into fury—an overpowering passion that can eclipse judgment and charity. When it is sparked by something trivial, it appears as peevishness: petty irritability that invites contempt rather than fear. Either way, anger deforms the person who indulges it, making them either dangerous (“terrible”) or laughable (“ridiculous”). The point is not that all indignation is illegitimate, but that anger is unstable and self-exaggerating; it readily becomes a vice unless disciplined by reason, humility, and restraint.