“Instead, therefore, of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man is the architect of Circumstance. It is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance.”
The Life and Works of Goethe (1855; repr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1856) vol. 1, p. 30, often misattributed to Thomas Carlyle.
Context: Instead, therefore, of saying that Man is the creature of Circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that Man is the architect of Circumstance. It is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance. Our strength is measured by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds palaces, another hovels, one warehouses, another villas.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
George Henry Lewes 54
British philosopher 1817–1878Related quotes
Book VI, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
“Man is the creature of circumstances.”
"The Philanthropist".
“Character, not circumstances, makes the man.”
"Democracy and Education" http://web.archive.org/20071031084046/www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.4/html/222.html, speech, Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn NY (30 September 1896)
The Genius (1915) The University of Illinois Press, 2004, ISBN 0-252-03100-8, p. 734
Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
“Many a time a man cannot be such as he would be, if circumstances do not admit of it.”
Act IV, scene 1, line 53 (666).
Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor)