If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?

Harris’s aphorism treats anger as a kind of moral or psychological “measurement.” If trivial irritations can provoke an outsized reaction, the problem is less the provocation than the person’s inner resources—patience, perspective, and self-command. The “size” in question is not physical but spiritual and emotional: breadth of mind, resilience, and the ability to rank events by importance. The line also implies a practical ethic of proportion: mature character is shown by refusing to grant small slights or inconveniences the power to govern one’s mood. In this way, the quote functions as both a rebuke and a self-diagnostic for everyday life.