“A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.”
Torquato Tasso, Act I, sc. ii (1790)
“Characters and talents are complemental and suppletory. The world stands by balanced antagonisms.”
The Natural History of Intellect (1893)
Context: Characters and talents are complemental and suppletory. The world stands by balanced antagonisms. The more the peculiarities are pressed the better the result. The air would rot without lightning; and without the violence of direction that men have, without bigots, without men of fixed idea, no excitement, no efficiency.
The novelist should not make any character act absurdly, but only absurdly as seen by others. For it is so in life. Nonsense will not keep its unreason if you come into the humorist's point of view, but unhappily we find it is fast becoming sense, and we must flee again into the distance if we would laugh.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes
Travis Parker, Chapter 16, p. 203
Variant: Relationship is about forgiveness and compromise. It is about balance where one person complements each other.
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)
Heinrich Heine
(1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic
Atta Troll, ch. 24 (1843)
Source: The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008), P. 61
“Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.”
John C. Maxwell
(1947) American author, speaker and pastor
“There is an eternal antagonism of interest between the individual and the world at large.”
Samuel Butler
(1835–1902) novelist
The Individual and the World
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?
Context: There is an eternal antagonism of interest between the individual and the world at large. The individual will not so much care how much he may suffer in this world provided he can live in men’s good thoughts long after he has left it. The world at large does not so much care how much suffering the individual may either endure or cause in this life, provided he will take himself clean away out of men’s thoughts, whether for good or ill, when he has left it.
José Martí
(1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men. The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest. An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life. A nation that neglects either of these forces perishes. They must be steered together, like a pair of carriage horses.
Jean Baudrillard
(1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher
Jean Baudrillard in: Eldon Taylor What Does That Mean?: Exploring Mind, Meaning, and Mysteries http://books.google.co.in/books?id=pTAIRTJbENgC&pg=PA171, Hay House, Inc, 15 January 2010, p. 171
New millennium
Source: On War (1832), Book 1, Chapter 3.
Context: Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one’s balance in spite of them. Even with the violence of emotion, judgment and principle must still function like a ship’s compass, which records the slightest variations however rough the sea.