Meditations: Book Two: On the River Gran Among the Quadi: 10

In comparing sins (the way people do) Theophrastus says that the ones commited out of desire are worse than the ones commited out of anger: which is good philosophy. The angry man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain and inner convulsion. But the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self-indulgent, less manly in his sins. Theophrastus is right, and philosophically sound, to say that the sin commuted out of pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one commited out of pain. The angry man is more like a victim of wrongdoing, provoked bycpain to anger. The other man rushes into wrongdoing on his own, moved to action by desire. ~ Marcus Aureluis.