Best 14098 quotes in «character quotes» category

We are dealing, then, with an absurdity that is not a quirk or an accident, but is fundamental to our character as people. The split between what we think and what we do is profound. It is not just possible, it is altogether to be expected, that our society would produce conservationists who invest in strip-mining companies, just as it must inevitably produce asthmatic executives whose industries pollute the air and vice-presidents of pesticide corporations whose children are dying of cancer. And these people will tell you that this is the way the "real world" works. The will pride themselves on their sacrifices for "our standard of living." They will call themselves "practical men" and "hardheaded realists." And they will have their justifications in abundance from intellectuals, college professors, clergymen, politicians. The viciousness of a mentality that can look complacently upon disease as "part of the cost" would be obvious to any child. But this is the "realism" of millions of modern adults. There is no use pretending that the contradiction between what we think or say and what we do is a limited phenomenon. There is no group of the extra-intelligent or extra-concerned or extra-virtuous that is exempt. I cannot think of any American whom I know or have heard of, who is not contributing in some way to destruction. The reason is simple: to live undestructively in an economy that is overwhelmingly destructive would require of any one of us, or of any small group of us, a great deal more work than we have yet been able to do. How could we divorce ourselves completely and yet responsibly from the technologies and powers that are destroying our planet? The answer is not yet thinkable, and it will not be thinkable for some time -- even though there are now groups and families and persons everywhere in the country who have begun the labor of thinking it. And so we are by no means divided, or readily divisible, into environmental saints and sinners. But there are legitimate distinctions that need to be made. These are distinctions of degree and of consciousness. Some people are less destructive than others, and some are more conscious of their destructiveness than others. For some, their involvement in pollution, soil depletion, strip-mining, deforestation, industrial and commercial waste is simply a "practical" compromise, a necessary "reality," the price of modern comfort and convenience. For others, this list of involvements is an agenda for thought and work that will produce remedies. People who thus set their lives against destruction have necessarily confronted in themselves the absurdity that they have recognized in their society. They have first observed the tendency of modern organizations to perform in opposition to their stated purposes. They have seen governments that exploit and oppress the people they are sworn to serve and protect, medical procedures that produce ill health, schools that preserve ignorance, methods of transportation that, as Ivan Illich says, have 'created more distances than they... bridge.' And they have seen that these public absurdities are, and can be, no more than the aggregate result of private absurdities; the corruption of community has its source in the corruption of character. This realization has become the typical moral crisis of our time. Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.

We are given talent but we choose to have character.

We are masters of our characters and in turn, slaves of their outgrowth.

We are just a people that have refused to improve with the times. Quick to copy the western world in a lot of things but have never been able to copy their DECENCY in civil matters.

We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants...I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either. People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.

We are never truly ourselves as we are mid-roll.

We are taught to think of personality as a singular, private possession. All the ideas and beliefs and attitudes that make you you—we are raised to believe them a set of files stored in the lockbox of the brain. Most people have no idea how much of themselves they store off-site. Your personality is not just a matter of what you know about yourself, but what others know about you. You are one person with your mother, and another with your lover, and yet another with your child. Those other people create you—finish you—as much as you create you. When you’re gone, the ones you’ve left behind get to keep the same part of you they always had.

We are what we are because of what we've been

We can achieve even more than we could expect if we try to be less distracted by the fuss of life and concentrate more on developing some qualities or characteristic of our soul and character

We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.

We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character.

We can’t see the true characters of those who lurk in the shade until they are exposed to the light…

We could sum up thre entire message of this book in the following way; leaders stand for something - vision. Leaders stand on something - values.

We discern a grand force in the lover which he lacks whilst a free man, but there is a breadth of vision in the free man which in the lover we vainly seek.

We don’t have no say, ‘cause we was an afterthought. He yanked us up out o’ man’s ribs, but He made man out the Earth. He made him out the dirt and the mud and made him out the world, so man is the world. Women…women just a part o’ men.” Elaine snubbed the cigarette out, tapped the dark leather case on the edge of the table and I watched as another slim, white stick slid free.

We have an obligation to ourselves to foster the environment that allows for our self-actualization. Rather than my gifts serving me, I must serve them. I want to be a steward of the best aspects of my character and assist them in their fulfillment through proper discipline and habits.

We have learned about some people from their social media feeds way more than their families have learned from years of living with them.

Welcome to Book-a-holic Anonymous. Hi, I'm Jazz and I am addicted to the written word. I love the smell of the blackest ink sliding across texture paper. My eyes squint against the loss of time within the pages of story. I don't think there's a cure for my compulsion to lose myself within life and times of those characters bound between the covers.

We largely become what we have observed and respected.

We live in an age fit for heroes. No time has ever offered such perils or prizes. Man can provide a full life for humanity – or he can destroy himself with the problems he has created. The test of this century will be whether man confuses the growth of wealth and power with the growth of spirit and character.…

Well, I myself, while sometimes unkempt by nights of drunkenness and debauchery, am quite convinced a man’s good character is marked by his impeccable attire.

We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.

We never let go of that,' Cecily said. 'I mean, even for parents - that's never not your baby, you know?' "I think you're right." As he got sicker, it was more and more often how he thought of people--of Charlie, certainly, and of everyone else here or gone: not as the sum of all the disappointments, but as every beginning they'd ever represented, every promise.

We never have to worry about our reputation, when we take ownership of our character.

We reflect God's character the most when we give freely of ourselves with no strings attached, no secret motives, no hidden agenda.

We need to be strong on the inside and have God’s character and qualities

We practically always excuse things when we understand them

We stand strong, or we cower. We emerge victorious, tempered by our trials , or fractured by a permanent, damming fault line.

We tend to overlook only those vices that we also have.

We will not wake up ten years from now and find we have passively taken on the character of God.

What are we if we are not disciplined?

What a wise person teaches is the smallest part of what they give. The totality of their life, of the way they go about it in the smallest details, is what gets transmitted.

What benefit have the Hindus derived from their contact with Christian nations? The idea generally prevalent in this country about the morality and truthfulness of the Hindus evidently has been very low. Such seeds of enmity and hatred have been sown by the missionaries that it would be an almost Herculean task to establish better relations between India and America... If we examine Greek, Chinese, Persian, or Arabian writings on the Hindus, before foreigners invaded India, we find an impartial description of their national character. Megasthenes, the famous Greek ambassador, praises them for their love of truth and justice, for the absence of slavery, and for the chastity of their women. Arrian, in the second century, Hiouen-thsang, the famous Buddhist pilgrim in the seventh century, Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, have written in highest terms of praise of Hindu morality. The literature and philosophy of Ancient India have excited the admiration of all scholars, except Christian missionaries.

What do I and a diamond have in common? We are tough, brilliant, and carbon based entities which evolved into something better under immense pressure, tribulation, and trials.

What do you believe reveals more about a man’s character, his arrogance or his attempt to disguise it?

What's real and what's not? People we meet in books--Holden Caulfield, Captain Ahab, Huckleberry Finn, Harry Potter, Bilbo and Gandalf and Frodo-- can become more memorable, and more important to us than people with birth certificates and drivers' licenses. Characters spawned in an author's imagination find a home inside us. They make our lives richer. They become our best friends. They never disappoint. And they never die.

What I took out of them was that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and that a hero was a man who would not break even under the most trying circumstances.

What people say about others' behavior or character is not always true, Just Proffer it to your best judgement.

What they say doesn't matter because it can be lies, but it's what they do that matters because it always speaks truth.

What if God doesn’t keep his promises?

What is knowledge, if it does to shape our conduct?

What many people do not understand is: It's not about who you think you know, but about who actually knows you. So better start giving today, be it giving everything at your job, or giving out lunch to that man. Start giving, and the world will know your true character!

What people say about you, good or bad, is not nearly as important as what you are.

What we did and who we were are just dregs compared to who we are now and how we act when the sword is coming down.

What we do when defeat stares us in the face is the real touchstone of character. But the very fact that success has time and again proved the means of awakening people to the knowledge of greater ability than they ever before dreamed they possessed, ought to hearten and encourage us to keep on no matter how often we fail. If we brace ourselves and continue to push forward we will ultimately win out. (From Everybody ahead, or getting the most out of life)

What would you tell her about me?” He did not just ask that. “You did not just ask that.” She chuckled. “I’m serious,” he smiled. “Very well, if you must know, I would say that you are arrogant and foolish, too handsome for your own good and far too cognizant of your own intellect. Unbending, unsympathetic, dogmatic, pig-headed—” “Handsome?” he interrupted, unable to keep the smile from his face. “And intelligent?” “Don’t forget arrogant.

What you express in your character is what your lifestyle crowns

What you think you are inside doesn’t matter, Morgan.” She hastened over to sit beside him. “In the end, it’s what a man does, how he acts, that shows his character. And I’ve never seen you act anything but nobly.” He lifted his face to hers, astonished at how fiercely she defended him, even after knowing the darkest secrets of his soul. “How can you be so sure of my character when I’m not even sure of it myself?” “I can’t help it,” she said, her voice trembling. She dropped her eyes to the bench, turmoil showing in her sweet features. “I love you. And loving someone means believing in them.” She loved him? Despite knowing what he was? A fierce joy seized him before he could prevent it. He caught her by the chin and forced her to look at him, but her clear blue eyes held no hint of deception. “God help you if you don’t mean that, ma belle ange.

What you do is so loud, I can't hear what you say." Anonymous

What you say hints to who you are. What you do says who you are. What you do and say, says it loudest.