Difficult People - Threats - Part 2

Now, for part two, I would like to turn to some short tidbits of wisdom found both in the Bible and other sources that can be instructive here..

Regarding the nature, purpose, and origins of many threat-oriented approaches:

• "The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act" - Tara Ploughman

On keeping positive and unphased by threats:

• "I'm an old man and have known many troubles, but most of them never happened." - Mark Twain


• "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear." - Mark Twain

The need to temper ones response to threats:

• "Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame." - Benjamin Franklin


• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." - Albert Einstien


• "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." (Proverbs 15:1)


• "Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty" (Provers 16:2)
  
• "Good sense makes one slow to anger.." 19;11

Why it is futile to try to out-shout a prototypical Threat-Hurler:

• "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." - Benjamin Franklin

Why you can be MORE confident and calm when someone threatens you and starts making a big scene in front of you:

• "Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly". - Proverbs 14:29


• “They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them.” - Charles Caleb Colton

Why you should let your "opponent" out talk you:

• "Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;" (James 1:19)



• "It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." - Mark Twain

Why threats are NOT good ways to get what you want:

"I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself” - Niccolo Machiavelli

Why threats don't phase an honest and intelligent person:

• “There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For I am armed so strong in honesty That they pass by me as the idle wind” - William Shakespeare