“Confusing ‘Character’ with ‘Temperament’”
Clearing the Ground (1986)
Context: Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters.
We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable. Of course, the optimum for a person is to possess both an easy temperament and a strong character, but this is a rare combination, and few of us are that lucky. The people who get things done tend to be prickly, and the people we enjoy being with tend to be accepting, and there seems to be no way to get around this. Obviously, there are many combinations of character and temperament, in varying degrees, so that this is only a rough generalization — but I think it is one worth remembering when we make personal judgments.
“Weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword.”
As quoted in Anecdote Lives of the Later Wits and Humourists (1874) by John Timbs, Vol. 2, p. 44
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Richard Whately 10
English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian 1787–1863Related quotes
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book
As quoted in Behold the Second Horseman (2005), by Joseph Lumpkin, p. 53.
“Constitutional rights should not be frittered away by arguments so technical and unsubstantial.”
Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Co. v. Burleson, 255 U.S. 407, 431 (1921).
Extra-judicial writings
Satire upon a Printer, line 36; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).
“The most difficult jobs look easy until you try to do them.”
Featherisms (2008)
Source: DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution (2003/2017), Chapter 9, “Reading Genomes: Evolution in Action” (p. 242)
“History shows that voting is the sword that cuts through all injustice.”
at LCV Annual Gala https://www.lcv.org/article_category/blog/Speech