“Character teaches above our wills.”

Part IV “The Training Floor” chapter 9 (p. 242)
Dawn (1987)

Source: Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (1929), p. 18

Source: Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), Persecution and the Art of Writing, p. 36

Source: The Key to Theosophy (1889)

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 60
Context: If it is impossible to induce fathers to abandon their families, how much more impossible would it be to induce mothers? When Tolstoy sought to live the truly Christian life, the immediate obstacle he found in his path was his own wife.... The next world had to take care of itself. She was burdened with dependents in this world, and like nearly every other mother-animal in creation, she insisted, in so far as she was able, upon feeding and protecting her young. She was as impervious as a tigress, concealing the lair of her young, to the teaching that a Christian must be willing to sacrifice everything and everybody in pursuit of truth.

Part III: La Clé des Chants (p. 93)
The Unquiet Grave (1944)
Context: Flaubert spoke true: to succeed a great artist must have both character and fanaticism and few in this country are willing to pay the price. Our writers have either no personality and therefore no style or a false personality and therefore a bad style; they mistake prejudice for energy and accept the sensation of material well-being as a system of thought.

Raise their children honorably, lovingly and with detachment. A child is a guest in the house, to be loved and respected — never possessed, since he belongs to God. How wonderful, how sane, how beautifully difficult, and therefore true. The joy of responsibility for the first time in my life.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 329.