"A soft answer turneth away wrath." Does it?

I have defused a situation with just a firm stare,and thank god it worked that idiot could have killed me without half trying.

Works for Dr. Phil Mcgraw.

There are many variables. I usually don’t raise my voice, unless someone is out of control. A raised voice, to me, is a precursor to physical violence.

It’s important to remain calm. Calm can project more power, than rage. In large part, because it shows control, or lack of experience in the given situation.

Sometimes, my only recourse is to get loud. In many cases, that works pretty well.

Anger clouds your judgement.

Yes (if I take your translation of an ancient Biblical text literally).

It can, especially if you manage to not be in a state of reaction, and include listening communicate that you get where they’re coming from. Often anger has a lot to do with not feeling heard or acknowledged, and important needs not being addressed, so if you give them that, it vanishes. For a much more practical non-religious modern read on the topic, see Speak Peace In A World Of Conflict , by Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Non-Violent Communication .

Yelling means you have lost the argument.

Once I rear ended a car in very heavy slow traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York. The driver got out of his car and was immediately up in my face, yelling. It was (technically) my fault, but I really didn’t deserve that level of vitriol. I stepped up to him, put my hand gently on his arm and said “I’m so so sorry sir, are you all right? Is your wife OK? I am always a little undone in this New York traffic!” and I pointed to my Washington State plates. He was quite disarmed by my apology and lack of anger, he calmed right down, apologized for stopping so suddenly, and we went on our merry ways.

I didn’t think it would help if I told him that I’d grown up in northern NJ and had been driving those roads constantly since I first got behind the wheel.

Don’t mince words. Be cool, calm. Honesty is the best policy. And don’t put so much faith in what the Bible says!

I worked for the phone company.
We put up a “No Parking” sign at a parking space, because we had to work in a manhole in that space. The sign was there for a couple weeks, and we worked in that hole about half of those days.
One day I found a car in that space. (This was the late 70’s)
My boss told me to call a tow truck. Instead, I opened the car, and pushed it 20 feet to an open, legal, parking space.
Around noon, the owner showed up. He was screaming about us touching his car. I CALMLY told him that the parking restriction was well marked, and how we moved it to avoid towing it. He continued yelling, and stormed off.
An hour later, he returned, and apologized. He said he appreciated our not towing the car, and that the car was undamaged.
I know that had I yelled when he did, it would have gone in another direction.

I think most times it does, but there are occasions when it can make things worse.

My son’s former softball coach made disparaging remarks about parents who support their transgender children. I expressed how his remarks were upsetting. He calmly and politely invited my husband and I to come speak with him. He thought our son needed religious guidance. He thought our son needed to be saved by Jesus.

I gave him a piece of my mind and he accused me of being bitter. If he had been an angry bigot he would have been easier to ignore. His calmness just made me angrier.

When I worked in customer service we often dealt with irate customers. The golden rule was to remain calm and let them vent. Their anger would blow over eventually and you could then begin to resolve the problem. To have met the anger with “grievous words” would have been disastrous.

When I fired our then gardener he came at me with wild eyes brandishing a pitch fork & a gnarled expression of pure hatred, I kept calm & waited for the bale of hay to slide down & bounce off his sorry bonce. I guess the superior smirk I wore as he charged forth infuriated him further but hey…cest la vie.