When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.

The maxim urges deliberate self-restraint at the moment when emotion most threatens judgment. By inserting a brief pause—longer when anger is intense—it treats speech as an action with consequences, not a reflex. The “counting” is a practical, almost mechanical technique: it interrupts escalation, gives reason time to reassert itself, and reduces the likelihood of saying something irreparable. The aphorism reflects an Enlightenment-inflected ideal of governing the passions through rational discipline, and it has endured because it translates moral advice into a simple, repeatable habit.