Quotes About Character

If one could only tear down his character, as old buildings are torn down, and build it up anew, as these are rebuilt! And so, in effect, it can be. A noble property of character is, that it is susceptible of improvement.

The least of the virtues adds to the perfection of the character. It is with the finest characters as it is with the finest woods and marbles--the polishing hand is still needed to bring out the veins of beauty and of grace.

Great crimes seldom spring from any sudden demoralization in the natures of their perpetrators. What seems a fearful precipitation of character, is usually no more than the rending of a veil from the hitherto concealed parts of it.

The poet's is the highest type of character: other men dwell in the conventional--he chiefly abides in the universal.

Singularity in dress argues eccentricity of character. A queer cut of the coat represents a crotchet in the brain.

Habits influence the character pretty much as undercurrents influence a vessel, and whether they speed us on the way of our wishes, or retard our progress, their influence is not the less important because imperceptible.

It is not the number of facts he knows, but how much of a fact he is himself, that proves the man.

Elements of the heroic exist in almost every individual: it is only the felicitous development of them all in one that is rare.

The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.

It is difficult to say which is the greatest evil--to have too violent passions, or to be wholly devoid of them. Controlled with firmness, guided by discretion, and hallowed by the imagination, the passions are the vivifiers and quickeners of our being. Without passion there can be no energy of character. Indeed, the passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways, and dangerous only in one--through their excess.

To win you must change the way you approach day-to-day situations. You must have the courage to choose the harder right over the easier wrong.

Storytelling is storytelling no matter what your medium is. And the language of film is also the same. You're still using close ups and medium shots and long shots. You're still trying to introduce the audience to a character and get then to care.

Integrity, wholeness, at-one-ness, is the opposite of moralism. Having integrity is the opposite of being moral. If one has integrity, one doesn't need morals. People with integrity operate with rules of thumb, not morals.

The compleat gentleman is not a perfect man.

A man is not made chivalrous by an extensive education. A college degree and advanced academic achievement are as often impediments to chivalry as they are inducements to it.

I propose three models—archetypes if you like—that comprise the dimensions of a chivalrous gentleman's character: the warrior, the lover, and the monk.

one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever.

Jeff, um dia você entenderá que é mais difícil ser bom do que ser inteligente.

Dan looked small in the corner, hunched over and broken. What was bizarre, what had angered her so, was that she had tried to do a story on Dan Mercer and his "good works" about a year before her sting showed his true predilections. Before that, Dan had seemed to be that rarest of beasts—the honest-to-God do-gooder, a man who truly wanted to make a difference and, most shockingly, a man who didn't couple that desire with self-aggrandizement. She

Brutus was out of the car first. He opened the door for me. I thanked him. Brutus stuck with the stoic. He had the kind of cigar-store-Indian face you couldn't imagine—and probably wouldn't ever want to see—smiling. On

Kat sighed, rose, and nodded to the bartender, a guy named Pete who looked like a character actor who always played the Irish bartender—which is what, in fact, he was. Pete nodded back, indicating that he'd put the drinks on Kat's tab. "Who

He asks me about that, about how a man who could have done such evil could also be kind. I try to explain to him that human beings are more complex than we know, but of course, I don't really have an answer.

It was how pitiful and weak this act of dominance made his father look, how, even though she was on the receiving end, his mother had manipulated his father into becoming something so pathetic that he had to resort to doing something so out of character, so not him. Adam