Quotes about character

page 5

“And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.”

“Some say ‘Man is what he eats’ and some say ‘A man’s thinking determines his character’. It might be even more true to say ‘A man’s life and character are governed by his breathing’! This is because a person can neither digest what he eats nor act up to his ideas unless his breathing qualifies him to do so.”

“And who is and should be a pessimist? He who is mature for death. He can love life so scarcely as he [the optimist] can depart from it. If he does not realize that he will survive in his children, his procreation loses its horrible character; but if he realizes it, he will recoil in horror from it, just like Humboldt noticing that it is paying dearly for a few minutes of pleasure with the torments that another being must endure perhaps for eighty years, and consider the procreation of children as a crime and justly so.”

“Do not squander your time,
self respect
nor
piece of mind
to shed light on someone else's true colors.
Lack of Character always reveals itself
in the end.
Trust vibes.
Energy does not lie!”

“Spotlight your Strengths…not your Weaknesses.

Focus on your Character…not your Reputation.

Count your Blessings…not your Misfortunes.”

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character”

“In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed.”

“To reconcile the gentleman with himself, it must be imagined that he determined the human character by the points of the compass. The truth was, that all men having power ought to be distrusted, to a certain degree.”

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”

“Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian Businessman.”

“Daughter, we didn't need your note - or a prince's visit - to tell us you'd done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander.
Father.”

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”

“Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.”

“Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?”

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing:”

“I do not use profanity in my novels. My characters all go to church.”

“It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.”

“I mean my characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.”

“Any excuse for non-performance, no matter how valid, weakens character.”

“The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.”

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”

“In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.”

“In character, in manner, in style, in all the things, the supreme excellence is simplicity”

“My interest in this pack of failures betrays my character.”

“There is no worse flaw in man's character than that of wanting to belong.”

“Personally, I believe “Young Adult” to be an arbitrary title that means the book "Can be enjoyed by anyone/Has a main character who’s not quite an adult/Isn’t really boring.”

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”

“I might as well enquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?”

“(Kindness) is much more a sign of character than mere niceness. Kindness connects to who you are, while niceness connects to how you want to be seen."
-David Levithan (Every Day)”

“Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.”

“… character reigns preeminent in determining potential.”

“Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.”

“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.”

“These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.”

“In his opinion, working was vastly overrated. Particularly as a way to build character, for everyone who engaged in it was far too snappish and fussy, and seemed to have no manners at all.”

“Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.”

“sometimes knowing when to give up is the real test of character…

-annabelle granger”

“I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.”

“It’s easier to be a character in a story than the star of your own tragedy.”

“True character is revealedby the way people react to the bigger challenges in life.”

“NC passed law against global warming science, therefore it's not happening. So I'm ignoring Twitter's 140-character limit, so it's not happ”

“But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.”

“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what the reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character.”

“Character comes from following our highest sense of right, from trusting ideas without being sure they’ll work.”

“He was going through one of those moments that you read about in books, when a character reacts in an unexpectedly extreme way to the normal discontents of living.”

“We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being.”

“Sometimes I don't know whether I'm real or whether I'm a character in one of my novels.”

“the depth of a person's character is not measured by his or her physical strength, but by the depth of his or her nobility.”

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”

“Your reputation is what you're perceived to be,
Your character is what you really are”

“You know what would help this boy?" Demeter mused. "Farming."
Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother-"
"Six months behind a plow. Excellent character building.”

“God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.”

“Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters. They only make good former spouses.”

“I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive.”

“People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.”

“Nothing marks a man's character better than his attraction to intelligence.”

“To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.
Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.”

“Every time I've built character, I've regretted it.”

“Jealousy is a strange transformer of characters.”

“Keep doing the right. God is building character in you, and you are passing that test. Remember, the greater the struggle, the greater the reward.”

“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.”

“Character is higher than intellect…A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”

“There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power.”

“I was once a fortunate man but at some point fortune abandoned me.
But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.”

“Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella."
(spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)”

“A woman may be beautiful but have poor character. A man may be a business genius, making money left and right, but lack common courtesy, sensitivity, and compassion.”

“My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.”

“In general there should be gay characters in YA because a) surprise, there are gay folks everywhere and b) in my opinion as a father, there’s not a damn thing wrong with my child encountering gay folks in her literature, because see point a).”

“I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes.”

“Character is simply habit long continued.”

“You have a valid complaint, and I do recognize it… but you are reading into things a little bit. Just the same, I will do my best to make horrible things happen to a bunch of white people before something else so graphic hits a minority character.”

“A reader doesn't really see the characters in a story; he feels them.”

“You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.”

“Anyone who knows me well must understand and be sympathetic to my genuine need to be my own greatest hero. It is not a flaw of character; it is a catastrophe.”

“Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.”

“Character forms a life regardless of how obscurely that life is lived and how little light falls on it from the stars.”

“All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.”

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character… Would you slow down? Or speed up?”

“A man kept his character even when he was insane.”

“Character is power.”

“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”

“… along with the other animals, the stones, the trees, and the clouds, we ourselves are characters within a huge story that is visibly unfolding all around us, participants within the vast imagination, or Dreaming, of the world.”

“But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark novel — independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.”

“The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions—none more so than the most capable.”

“I start drawing, and eventually the characters involve themselves in a situation. Then in the end, I go back and try to cut out most of the preachments.”

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

“… as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”

“Blood hardly defines one's character. We are made by our actions, not our blood. - Soren”

“My worst character flaw that I'm conscious of is that I tend to think my way into circles instead of resolving anything. It's paralyzing and boring for people around me.”

“If I want to play mind games, I'd buy a Rubik's cube. ~ Acheron, a character.”

“A good way to rid one's self of a sense of discomfort is to do something. That uneasy, dissatisfied feeling is actual force vibrating out of order; it may be turned to practical account by giving proper expression to its creative character.”

“Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard. It is in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others and denies nothing to itself.”

“For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”

“There was a saying that a man's true character was revealed in defeat. I thought it was also revealed in victory.”

“It was good, and nothing good is truly lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours, forever”

“There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot.”

“people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well.”

“I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.”