Quotes About Character

A person's life persuades better than his word," said one of Aristotle's contemporaries.

When you do a good thing, don't just do it in front of the mirror. Let people see your wonderfulness. It will do wonders for your reputation among humans.

Oh, Danny has quite a reputation for headstrongery." "Eh? Headstrongery?" said Mr. Pippit. "What kind of a word is that?" "Kind of nice, isn't it?" Joe said, proudly. "I just invented it. I also invented a motto for him: 'Leap before you look.' My own motto is, 'Sleep before you look.

No one can turn a man into a hero, just as no one can turn him into a coward. A man has to do either one all by himself.

Grandma always said that people don't change, at least not way down deep inside where it counts.

Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.

Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.

I should like to write about what happens when fictive people encounter and are embellished by real people.

For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake.

Si uno quiere descubrir cualidades realmente excepcionales en el carácter de un ser humano, debe tener el tiempo o la oportunidad de observar su comportamiento durante varios años. Si este comportamiento no es egoísta, si está presidido por una generosidad sin límites, si es tan obvio que no hay afán de recompensa, y además ha dejado una huella visible en la tierra, entonces no cabe equivocación posible.

A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty. No, it is not possible that minds degraded by a multitude of futile concerns would ever raise themselves to anything great. Even when they had the strength for that, the courage would be missing.

The] reader is not primarily interested in plot. He is interested in what happens because he is interested in the character it happens to. No incident has any place in the story unless it has an emotional impact on the character--and on the reader. Newbery Acceptance Speech

How can you expect my character to be solidly real, to be anything other than obviously imaginary, when everything is contingent anyway? My Character has been deformed out of reality by his own nihilism, his own metaphysical nothingness.

Un Hombre es todo lo que hace, con lo que hicieron de el.

Un hombe es lo que hace, con lo que hicieron de el.

What people would like is that a coward or a hero be born that way.

Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person's true nature?

All wickedness comes from weakness. The child is wicked only because he is weak. Make him strong; he will be good. He who could do everything would never do harm.

Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.

It is true that the genius of assembled men or of peoples is quite different from a man's character in private, and that one would know the human heart very imperfectly if he did not examine it also in the multitude. But it is no less true that one must begin by studying man in order to judge men, and that he who knew each individual's inclinations perfectly could foresee all their effects when combined in the body of the people.

How could I become wicked, when I had nothing but examples of gentleness before my eyes, and none around me but the best people in the world?

To be something, to be himself, and always at one with himself, a man must act as he speaks, must know what course he ought to take, and must follow that course with vigour and persistence.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

La integridad de un hombre de bien es siempre antipática a los malvados.