A picture or a representation of human figures should be done in such a way that the spectator can easily recognize the purpose that is in their minds by their attitudes. If you have to represent a man of high character, let his gestures be such as harmonize with fair words; likewise, if you have to represent a man of low character, let his gestures be fierce, let him thrust his arms towards the listener, and let his head and chest be thrust forward in front of his feet, following the hands of the speaker. It is thus with a dumb man, who seeing two speakers, although he is deprived of hearing, nevertheless, owing to the attitudes and gestures of the speakers,
The less government we have, the better, — the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual.
The higher character a person supports, the more he should regard his minutest actions.
Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, / Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt=--A talent is formed in retirement, a character in the current of the world.
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled. The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think that, though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong. Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in a battle.--_Johnson._
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.
The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" disposition. This compatibility of ill-temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The Greatest Thing in the World, p. 31.
The character of a nation is not to be learned from its fine folks.
His own character is the arbiter of every one's fortune.
Nothing, or almost nothing, is certain to me, except the Divine Infernal character of this universe I live in, worthy of horror, worthy of worship.
The best lesson that any people can learn is that there is no patent cure-all which will make the body politic perfect, and that any man who is able glibly to answer every question as to how to deal with the evils of the body politic is at best a foolish visionary and at worst an evil-minded quack. Neither doctrinaire socialism nor unrestricted individualism nor any other ism will bring about the millennium. Collectivism and individualism must be used as supplementary, not as antagonistic, philosophies. In the last analysis the welfare of a nation depends on its having throughout a healthy development. A healthy social system must of necessity represent the sum of very many moral, intellectual, and economic forces, and each such force must depend in its turn partly upon the whole system; and all these many forces are needed to develop a high grade of character in the individual men and women who make up the nation. Much of the discussion about socialism and individualism is entirely pointless, because of failure to agree on terminology. The very reason why we object to state ownership, that it puts a stop to individual initiative and to the healthy development of personal responsibility, is the reason why we object to an unsupervised, unchecked monopolistic control in private hands. We urge control and supervision by the nation as an antidote to the movement for state socialism. Those who advocate total lack of regulation, those who advocate lawlessness in the business world, themselves give the strongest impulse to what I believe would be the deadening movement toward unadulterated state socialism. [“The Thralldom of Names,” History as Literature .]
Under the right conditions it is as natural for character to become beautiful as for a flower; and if on God's earth there is not some machinery for effecting it, the supreme gift to the world has been forgotten. This is simply what man was made for. With Browning: "I say that Man was made to grow, not stop." The Changed Life, p. 10.
Nobilitatis virtus non stemma character=--Virtue, not pedigree, should characterise nobility.
Something of a person's character may be discovered by observing when and how he smiles. Some people never smile. They only grin.
The history of a man is his character.
Activity is the presence, and character the record, of function.
No character was ever rightly understood until it had been first regarded with a certain feeling, not of tolerance only, but of sympathy.
How many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside! The Greatest Thing in the World.
Nothing more readily pleases a vulgar mind than to find anomalies in conduct or character.
How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life. This is our modern danger — one of the waxen wings of flight. It may cause our civilization to fall unless we act quickly to counteract it, unless we realize that human character is more important than efficiency, that education consists of more than the mere accumulation of knowledge.
Courage is on all hands considered an essential of high character.
We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.
Moral culture must begin with a change= (_Umwandlung_) =in the way of thinking, and with the founding of a character.
To make a bank was a great plot of state; Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.
Every man's character remains as it is, or continues in the direction in which it is going, until it is compelled by IMPRESSED FORCES to change that state. Our failure has been the failure to put ourselves in the way of the impressed forces. There is a clay, and there is a Potter; we have tried to get the clay to mould the clay. The Changed Life, p. 21.
What is the true test of character, unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction, of daily life?
_Sayings and Proverbs_. Gentleness is one of the noblest traits in a man's character.
Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the animal in the slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to the natural man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an eternal life must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; who will wonder or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day? The Changed Life, p. 55.
Those who think that it is only necessary to feed and clothe the prisoner, and to act towards him in all things according to the law, are much mistaken. However much debased he may be, a man exacts instinctively respect for his character as a man. Every prisoner knows perfectly that he is a convict and a reprobate, and knows the distance which separates him from his superiors; but neither the branding irons nor chains will make him forget that he is a man. He must, therefore, be treated with humanity. Humane treatment may raise up one in whom the divine image has long been obscured. It is with the "unfortunate," above all, that humane conduct is necessary. It is their salvation, their only joy.
It is a grand old name, that of gentleman, and has been recognized as a rank and power in all stages of society. To possess this character is a dignity of itself, commanding the instinctive homage of every generous mind, and those who will not bow to titular rank will yet do homage to the gentleman. His qualities depend not upon fashion or manners, but upon moral worth; not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities. The Psalmist briefly describes him as one "that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart."--_Samuel Smiles._
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
If the time given to education permits, add Latin and German. Latin, because it is the key to nearly one-half of English and to all the Romance languages; and German, because it is the key to almost all the remainder of English, and helps you to understand a race from whom most of us have sprung, and who have a character and a literature of a fateful force in the history of the world, such as probably has been allotted to those of no other people, except the Jews, the Greeks, and ourselves.
The victories of character are instant, and victories for all.
The man that makes a character makes foes.
Fiction, while the feigner of it knows that he is feigning, partakes, more than we suspect, of the nature of lying; and has ever an, in some degree, unsatisfactory character.
The most cursory observation shows that a degree of reserve adds vastly to the latent force of character.
Negligere quid de se quisque sentiat, non solum arrogantis est, sed omnino dissoluti=--To be careless of what others think of us, not only indicates an arrogant, but an utterly abandoned character.
~Amusement.~--Amusement is the waking sleep of labor. When it absorbs thought, patience, and strength that might have been seriously employed, it loses its distinctive character, and becomes the task-master of idleness.--_Willmott._
A woman in love is a very poor judge of character.
C?lum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt=--Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.
No man who does not choose, enter into and walk in some narrow way of life, will ever have any moral character, any clearness of purpose, any wisdom of intelligence, or any tenderness or strength of heart.
Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
Smoke is no less an evidence of fire than that a man's character is that of the character of his associates.
One may give him a hundred instances from Holy Writ that he should not dispute; still, it is the character of a fool to make a disturbance without a cause.
Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs, equally to the honest man and to the gentleman: to the first, as doing to others as we would ourselves be done by; to the last, as indispensable to the liberality of the character. By candor we are not to understand trifling and uncalled for expositions of truth; but a sentiment that proves a conviction of the necessity of speaking truth, when speaking at all; a contempt for all designing evasions of our real opinions; and a deep conviction that he who deceives by necessary implication, deceives willfully. In all the general concerns, the publick has a right to be treated with candor. Without this manly and truly republican quality, republican because no power exists in the country to intimidate any from its exhibition, the institutions are converted into a stupendous fraud.
If the foot had always been ignorant that it belonged to the body, and that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only had the knowledge and the love of self, and if it came to know that it belonged to a body on which it depended, what regret, what confusion for the past life, for having been useless to the body from which its whole life was derived, which would have reduced it to nothing if it had rejected it and separated it from itself, as it held itself apart from the body. What prayers for its preservation in the body, with what submission would it allow itself to be governed according to the will which rules the body, even to consent, if need be, that it should be cut off, or it would lose its character of member. For each member must be content to perish for the body, for which alone the whole exists.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope. It is important to remember, as has well been said, 'the essential characteristic of true liberty is that under its shelter many different types of life and character and opinion and belief can develop unmolested and unobstructed'.
Temperament lies behind mood; back of the caprice of will lies the fate of character; back of both is the bias of family; back of that, the tyranny of race; still deeper, the power of climate, of soil, of geology, the whole physical and moral environment. Still we are free men only so far as we rise above these.
Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and angels know of us.
A first impression works like a magic mirror; it reflects what intrigues us rather than echoing a truthful picture. A first impression is the creating of an imagined character, born from personal desires, perceptions, and biases. Though sparked by an introduction to a real, living, breathing individual, the person remains a mystery long after parting. It is a fictitious ghost masked with similar features who remains. A first impression is rarely accurate; therefore, it should never be trusted.
One who has nothing to admire, nothing to love, except his own poor self, may be reckoned a completed character; (but) he is in the minimum state of moral perfection--no more can be made of him.
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
Fiction is no longer a mere amusement; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine.--_Channing._
Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a religious book or friend.
...if he insists on a version of you that is funnier, stranger, more eccentric and profound than you suspect yourself to be - capable of doing more good and more harm in the world than you've ever imagined - it is all but impossible not to believe, at least in his presence and for a while after you've left him, that he alone sees through to your essence, weighs your true qualities and appreciates you more fully than anyone else ever has. It is only after knowing him some time that you begin to realize that you are, to him, an essentially fictional character, one he has invested with nearly limitless capacities for tragedy and comedy not because that is your true nature but because he needs to live in a world propelled by extreme and commanding figures.
To be able simply to say of a man he has character, is not only saying much of him, but extolling him; for this is a rarity which excites respect and wonder.
It is a golden rule not to judge men according to their opinions, but according to the effect these opinions have on their character.
There are four points in a good character from which all other good traits take their origin--prudence, courage, continence, and justice.
To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
Scaffoldings are for buildings, and the moments and days and years of our earthly lives are scaffolding. What are you building inside it? What kind of a structure will be disclosed when the scaffolding is knocked away? Days and years are ours, that they may give us what eternity cannot take away--a character built upon the love of God in Christ, and moulded into His likeness.
~Excitement.~--There is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness with which I must deeply sympathize.--_Mrs. Stowe._
Formerly we used to represent things visible on earth, things we either liked to look at or would have liked to see. Today we reveal the reality that is behind visible things, thus expressing the belief that the visible world is merely an isolated case in relation to the universe and that there are many more other, latent realities. Things appear to assume a broader and more diversified meaning, often seemingly contradicting the rational experience of yesterday. There is a striving to emphasize the essential character of the accidental.
If the way in which men express their thoughts is slipshod and mean, it will be very difficult for their thoughts themselves to escape being the same. If it is high flown and bombastic, a character for national simplicity and thankfulness cannot long be maintained.--_Dean Alford._
Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.
There is a certain artificial polish, a commonplace vivacity, acquired by perpetually mingling in the beau monde, which, in the commerce of the world, supplies the place of natural suavity and good-humour; but it is purchased at the expense of all original and sterling traits of character.
When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise — to deny the political character of the modern corporation — is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are the students who instruct in error. Let there be no question: economics, so long as it is thus taught, becomes, however unconsciously, a part of the arrangement by which the citizen or student is kept from seeing how he or she is, or will be, governed.
"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
To guard his tongue is one of the best traits in a man's character.
No artist-work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character in a child.
The great hope of society is individual character.
I like to play any character that allows me the freedom to explore it and teach the audience something they didn't know, and show them a journey they identify with... or be inspired, or moved. Anything that touches someone's heart is important for me.
The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.
One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
In reflecting the character of Christ, it is no real obstacle that we may never have been in visible contact with Himself. Many men know Dante better than their own fathers. He influences them more. As a spiritual presence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Is there any reason why a greater than . . . Dante should not also instruct, inspire, and mould the characters of men? The Changed Life, pp. 38, 52.
How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?
Nothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God is a God of order. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never at random. The world, even the religious world, is governed by law. Character is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The Christian experiences are governed by law. Pax Vobiscum, p. 17.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state, sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
For those, who by these signs and that wisdom have deserved your belief, and who have proved to you their character, declare to you that nothing of all this can change you, and render you capable of knowing and loving God, but the power of the foolishness of the cross without wisdom and signs, and not the signs without this power. Thus our Religion is foolish when we consider the effective cause, wise when we consider the wisdom which has prepared it.
She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.
We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.
When we think of the exalted character of Christ's teaching, may we not ask ourselves once more, What would He have said if He had seen the fabulous stories of His birth and childhood, or if He had thought that His Divine character would ever be made to depend on the historical truth of the _Evangelia Infantiae_?
A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.
Yes, every day adds a new thin layer of new thoughts, and these layers form the texture of our character. The materials come floating towards us, but the way in which they settle down depends much on the ebb and flow within us. We can do much to keep off foreign elements, and to attach and retain those which serve best in building up a strong rock. But from time to time a great sorrow breaks through all the strata of our soul--all is upheaved, shattered, distorted. In nature all that is grand dates from such convulsions--why should we wish for a new smooth surface, or let our sorrows be covered by the flat sediment of everyday life?