Quotes About Character

There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked.

Be good and you will be lonesome.

I'm more interested in being good than being famous.

Mercedes] learns a valuable lesson: if you think you are good, just try doing good. You'll soon find out how inadequate your little drop of goodness is.

Mi torre no debe parecerse a las demás, ni la comparo con ellas. No se trata de que sea todo lo alta posible. Debe además corresponderse con mi naturaleza.

The way you make an omelet reveals your character.

Early moralists who believed that taking too much pleasure at the table led inexorably to bad character-or worse, to sex-were (in the best-case scenario, anyway) absolutely right.

When a job applicant starts telling me how Pacific Rim-job cuisine turns him on and inspires him, I see trouble coming. Send me another Mexican dishwasher anytime. I can teach him to cook. I can't teach character. Show up at work on time six months in a row and we'll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: 'Shut the fuck up.

Todo el mundo debería saber hacer una tortilla francesa. Cocinar huevos es un comienzo tan bueno como cualquier otro, porque es la primera comida del día y porque el proceso de aprender a hacer una tortilla, para mí, no es solo una técnica, sino una forja de carácter. La técnica de la tortilla enseña delicadeza, necesariamente; comprender lo que sucede en tu sartén y saber actuar en consecuencia requiere cierta sensibilidad.

There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters. Even trashy bestsellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory. - from the introduction of the 1986 Norton edition

The question is whether such a technique can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?

There is, in fact, not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the possibility of moral transformation, or an increase in wisdom, operating in your chief character or characters.

Even trashy bestsellers show people changing. When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of the field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory.

Ya no es un malhechor. Tampoco es una criatura capaz de una elección moral.

A bondade vem de dentro. A bondade é algo que se escolhe. Quando um homem perde a capacidade de escolha, deixa de ser homem.

When a fictional work fails to show change, when it merely indicates that human character is set, stony, unregenerable, then you are out of the field of the novel and into that of the fable or the allegory.

The war seems to have altered some people out of recognition and made others more than ever like themselves,' said Isobel.

One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.

Why are you so stuck up?' she asked, truculently. 'I'm just made that way.' 'You ought to fight it.' 'I can't see why.

Mrs. Dadds, who was telling a story about her chilblains, brought her narrative to a more or less satisfactory conclusion and paused to regain her breath.

It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute ... that gives meaning to our lives.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are." —JOHN WOODEN