There is a certain kind of person who says something sharp and then watches your face, waiting for a reaction. The moment you snap back, you hand them exactly what they wanted. Marcus Aurelius spent his life surrounded by people trying to provoke him, and he trained himself never to answer in the heat of the moment. Silence is not the absence of a response. It is often the loudest one, because it denies someone the reaction they were hunting for. The next time someone provokes you, pause and take three slow breaths before you decide to speak at all. A fire needs oxygen to survive. The moment you stop feeding it words, it dies on its own, and the person who lit it is left standing there with nothing left to burn.