Quotes About Character

You are what you eat. For example, if you eat garlic you're apt to be a hermit.

Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper bringing-up, a sound set of values — and witnesses.

A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.

I may be wicked, but I'm not bad.

Perhaps it's just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.

We would much rather blame nature for what we don't like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.

Ayn Rand, the Russian-American novelist and would-be philosopher, needed such boring heavy tomes full of bloodless characters to make her case. Her main point was that we are unalloyed individualists, but she had to work hard to convince us, because deep down everyone knows that this is not who or what we are. Rather than a description of our species, Rand offered a counterintuitive ideological construct.

Life goes on, as it should, but individuals are unique.

The behavior of an individual is therefore determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.

Real men are sadly lacking in this world, for when they are put to the test they prove worthless.

Boredom lies in our character, not in the world. "If you're bored," I've heard it said, "you're boring." Think about this. When you're bored, you tend to bore others. Conversely, when you're bored, it is because you are boring: you are the one who engages in the act of boring. It's not the world that is boring you, it is you who are boring the world.

Father Time is the make-up man responsible for the physical changes that determine the parts the average actor is to play.

Jack Benny's so cheap he wouldn't give you the parsley off his fish.

Temptations are a compliment to our power, not our weakness.

Adams' attitude toward employees exemplified the New England view defining people mostly by performance. Class was accidental, a matter of birth and category. Performance was individual, partly under the control of character. He was interested in people of every class. Steerage and cabin passengers mingled in a twice-a-week political discussion group in which he took part. When

Wilson also makes a powerful point when he says that strong character leads to the integrated self—a joining of head and heart, where thoughts, feelings, and actions are in harmony, resulting in behavior that demonstrates the character of an individual who walks the talk of his or her belief system.

We reveal our character all the time through observable behaviors: in the way we treat other people. As we mature, these character-driven behaviors become automatic reflexes, the character habits that express our guiding principles and beliefs.

In essence, our behavior is a product of our genetic makeup and basic human nature filtered and honed through the environments, experiences, and relationships that form our life journey. Together, these factors—governed by both our nature and the nurturing we receive—help shape the belief system and moral habits that form our character, and in turn, trigger the habitual behaviors that express it.

The work involved in exploring your own nature, identifying weaknesses in your character, and then working to overcome them can be difficult and even painful. But as with all transformative change, the outcomes can more than compensate for the work of achieving them. You may be the only person in your life who is unaware of the shortcomings in your character.

Try your best to make goodness attractive. That's one of the toughest assignments you'll ever be given.

It's really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are. Of course, it's the opposite that's true: What we are ultimately determines what we do!

We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.

Who you are inside is what helps you make and do everything in life.

Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past.