Character Quotes

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A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character.

A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. And in a good novel, the whole of the philosophy has passed into the images. But if once the philosophy overflows the characters and action, and therefore looks like a label stuck on the work, the plot loses its authenticity and the novel its life. Nevertheless, a work that is to last cannot dispense with profound ideas. And this secret fusion between experiences and ideas, between life and reflection on the meaning of life, is what makes the great novelist.

The danger of having the Constitution twisted and misconstrued to support vested interests and prejudices must be guarded against if American democracy is to maintain a progressive character.

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

Bertrand Russell

Music has a power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young.

Most of my stories are ideas in action. In other words, I get a concept, and I let it run away. I find a character to act out the idea. And then the story takes care of itself.

What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

Henry David Thoreau

A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles, for then he is off his guard.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

Henry David Thoreau

All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and allowed to live only so far as the interest to the ruling class requires it.

How significant is the enormous heightening, under mescalin, of the perception of color! … Man's highly developed color sense is a biological luxury—inestimably precious to him as an intellectual and spiritual being, but unnecessary to his survival as an animal. … Mescalin raises all colors to a higher power and makes the percipient aware of innumerable fine shades of difference, to which, at ordinary times, he is completely blind. It would seem that, for Mind at Large, the so-called secondary characters of things are primary.

It is in the character of growth that we should learn from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.

I just make what I like - warm and human stories, ones about historic characters and events, and about animals. If there is a secret, I guess it's that I never make the pictures too childish, but always try to get in a little satire of adult foibles.

No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth, will be the test of merit.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career, it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies.

Theodore Roosevelt

Our most important aim is to develop definite personalities in our cartoon characters. We don't want them to be just shadows, for merely as moving figures they provoke no emotional response from the public. We invest them with life a caricature of life.

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.

For a human community to become a nation and a state, the best characters in the country must have hearts that do not live only for themselves. Such hearts speak to those around them. They care. They teach – teach to understand. They unite. Protect. Save when necessary.

Volodymyr Zelensky

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough today to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force of character is cumulative.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

When it was first proposed to establish laboratories at Cambridge, Todhunter, the mathematician, objected that it was unnecessary for students to see experiments performed, since the results could be vouched for by their teachers, all of them of the highest character, and many of them clergymen of the Church of England.

Bertrand Russell

Abu Hurayra stated, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The most perfect of believers in belief is the best of them in character. The best of you are those who are the best to their women."

In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to Nature, or are reflected and reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, and Human Philosophy or Humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character of the power of God, the difference of Nature and the use of Man.

Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct.