Quotes About Character

A man is an oak, a woman a willow," the saying ran. The oak fought the wind and was broken, while the willow bent when it must and survived.

It was who he was. He had not changed, he had not transformed. He had merely accepted.

I'd rather be a piece of work than a piece of shit.

When things are easy a person doesn't really learn about himself. It's what a person does at the moment of his greatest struggle that shows him who he really is. Some people never get that moment.

In the absence of The King the Warrior becomes a mercenary, the Magician becomes a sophist (able to argue any position and believing in none), and the Lover becomes an addict.

he didn't give a damn about being popular; he cared only about being right.

A leader, or those who aspire to that role, regardless of whether in the public or the private sector, must have integrity.

My parents shaped my character and therefore my life.

Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who's bound to have some characteristic of quality.

The bones and flesh and legal statistics are the garments worn by the personality, not the other way around.

But apart from a personality what is there? Some bones and flesh. A collection of legal statistics, perhaps, but surely no person.

A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who's bound to have some characteristic of quality.

Tous les hommes honnêtes sont dangereux. Seules, les canailles sont inoffensives... Parce que les canailles n'agissent que par intérêt, c'est-à-dire petitement.

when the punishment was sufficient. Even as a boy Boone showed the stoicism

And suddenly, in view of these reflections, Ulrich had to smile and admit to himself that he was, after all, a character, even without having one.

Städte lassen sich an ihrem Gang erkennen wie Menschen.

E de facto bem pode dizer-se que as ideias inesperadas nos vêm porque estávamos à espera delas. São, em grande parte, o resultado conseguido de um carácter, de certas inclinações constantes, de uma ambição tenaz, de uma incessante ocupação com elas. Que tédio, uma perseverança assim!

Goodness . . . You got to make it out of badness . . . Because there isn't anything else to make it out of.

There ain't anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity.

But listen here, there ain't anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity.

When you enslave a black man, you enslave yourself as well, for now you are bound to him as surely as he is bound to you, and your character is shaped by his bondage as surely as his own is. Make the black man servile, and in the same process you make yourself tyrannical. Make the black man quiver in fear before you, and you make yourself a monster of terror.

Not even hatred can corrode real honor.

He understood that every person has a weak and needy part of their soul that can be bought, and he knew that every individual also had a part of their soul that was resilient and could never be bought. It was only a question of which one was stronger.

knew that every individual also had a part of their soul that was resilient and could never be bought.