There are four middoth in deoth (temperaments): easily angered and easily pacified — his gain is negated by his loss; angered with difficulty and pacified with difficulty — his loss is negated by his gain. [If one is quickly angered by all things, even though he is easily appeased, his loss is more than his gain. For most of his acts are defective in that he is easily angered over everything. But if one is angered with difficulty, even though he has the evil middah of being pacified with difficulty, his (relatively) small loss, being pacified with difficulty, is negated by his (relatively) greater gain, being angered with difficulty, so that most of his acts are praiseworthy. Some versions are the opposite of this; but this seems to be the correct version.]; angered with difficulty and easily pacified — a chasid; easily angered and pacified with difficulty — a wicked one.
Mesilat Yesharim
Our sages of blessed memory already said "verbal oppression is more severe than monetary oppression..." (ibid). This is even more so, if the shaming is done in public as we learned explicitly: "one who whitens his neighbor's face (shames him) publicly has no portion in the World to Come" (Avot 5:11), and Rabbi Chisda taught (Bava Metzia 59a): "all the gates [of prayer] were locked except the gates of [the cries of] verbal oppression". Rabbi Eliezer taught "for every sin, the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts payment through a messenger except for the sin of verbal oppression".
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Mesilat Yesharim
There is another angry type far from this. This person's wrath is not kindled for every thing, small or big, which does not happen according to his will. But when his threshold of anger is reached, he will erupt in great fury. This is what our sages, of blessed memory, said: "difficult to anger and difficult to appease" (Avot 5:11). This type is also certainly very evil, for great damage may happen through him during his [eruption] of anger, and he will no longer be able to straighten what he has made crooked.
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Orchot Tzadikim
Rabbi said : "There are four temperaments : Easily angered and easily pacified; his loss is cancelled out by his gain. Hard to anger and hard to pacify; his gain is cancelled out by his loss. Easily angered and hard to pacify is a wicked man. Hard to anger and easily pacified is a saintly man."
