Quotations on Character Building

• Preface
• Building Character
  1. Section 1
  2. Section 2
  3. Section 3 T

Preface

"Does being brutally kidnapped build character?"

To see the original system of arranging items, which runs through the essays marked by "Get Tao", click on those icons.

Nice, good and beneficient things in life may come easier by strategic steps and good designs somehow. So, clever thinking may help some. Much depends on you and those you are among, and the general conditions, though.

Fragments of the following "Get Tao" essays can be knit and halfway woven together. Each such survey (essay) supplies thinking that in the end - if well schooled and carefully geared - could lead into welcoming arms (ie, Tao). From there on you might need professionals to sort out things for you - or better: become one yourself. Some sensible school is usually needed for it.

The solid character stems from things accepted far and wide

A man's old, solid character could look like his maturing successes

Impressions had from up to thousands of others entered into the make-up of our character, deeds and thoughts, well - even some of our success. [With George Matthew Adams]

A man's character is like his guardian divinity. [With Heraclitus]

Character is what you are in the dark. [Dwight Moody] ◊

Who cannot hold on to his basis, may become an easy prey in time, if unguarded

Two good hints of a person's basic and not totally dormant character can be (a) how he treats people who cannot do him any good in return, and (b) how he treats people who cannot fight back. [With Abigail Van Buren] (#1.3)

On the Way

1. Things accepted far and wide work as the guardian divinity - sort of.
2. One is to guard and stick to one's basis in life to succeed well, over time.

The master-smith is not the most interesting to be around

If great character is all there is left of you, hold on to it like the master smith of our fairy tales, and things could go well

A MAN'S reputation is what other people think of him; his character looks like what he really is. [With Jack Miner]

At times a person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. [With G. C. Lichtenberg]

Before you advise anyone "Be yourself!" reassess his character. [Unknown]

Man's character can breed his fate. It's no good getting outsmarted. [With Heraclitus]

Good character is often more outstanding than outstanding talent. Talents are to some extent looked on as gifts. Good character, on the other hand, is hardly given. It depends in part on good choice, courage and determination along with temperament, and firmness comes in between. [With John Luther]

Feel free to make the most of yourself, if that is all there is of you. [With Ralph Waldo Emerson (a joke)]

Do what you know, and perception can be converted into character as time goes by. [With Ralph Waldo Emerson]

Character may be looked at as the long-range sum of a person's favourite choices or preferences, if you like. [With P. B. Fitzwater]

Few superficial people can distinguish the genuinely good from the other. [With Ava Gardner and Juvenal]

Great character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. [With Jacqueline Bisset]

If you don't run your own life, somebody else will. Have that fear. [With John Atkinson]

An original can be hard to find and easy to recognize till he learns the blessings of good conformity and taking shelter one way or another. [With John Mason]

The measure of a man's real character is at times what he would do if his mother-in-law appears unforeseen for long. You are not very good on your own if not far better than your best friends imagine. [With Thomas B. Macaulay and Johann Kaspar Lavater]

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness. [Faith Baldwin]

It could be that between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character. [With Walter Lippmann]

Character development is one deep-going aim of good education. [With O'Shea]

Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time. [Elbert Hubbard]

There is perhaps no better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose. [With William M. Bulger]

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character… [Stephen R. Covey]

Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character. [Henry Clay]

Much modern "character" is basically an outgrowth of sallow education, its' not deep and hardy at all. ◊

There is good breeding of character, bad breeding and all the others.

All should live so that nobody may readily believe transgressors. [With Plato]

Building character looks ruthless: it eliminates weak ones. [With Darrell Royal]

The many often attack the one with hate and fury and their sharp weapons. But if he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and exposed to the winds and beaten against by tidal waves, he laughs inside at all that stuff. [With Virgil] ◊

Many so-called essential characteristics of a man happen to dwindle or get uninteresting as decades run by

MAYBE old age, sickness and rotten eggs bring out the essential characteristics of a man. [With Felix Frankfurter] (#2.1)

On the Way

1. Hold on to character and a handy fare, and things may go well too, as long as enemies don't hinder it.
2. If characteristics conflict with old age, aging may not go well.

Family-fit or family-served popularity goes a long way toward building of characters

Maybe there is nothing like well deserved popularity in the family kept uncramped and steady at that

GOOD CHARACTER made use of by others down into steady continuance, may get worse than a large family. [With Charles H. Parkhurst and Henry David Thoreau]

My father told me that if you saw a man in a Rolls Royce you could be sure he was not a gentleman unless he was the chauffeur. [Earl of Arran] ◊

Appropriate character is not always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed for the sake of good conformity and deserved popularity.

The good you show up much and make use of, may not remain with you all along - but perhaps your dark, hidden sides can and will some time

YOU CAN regulate your life by standards you look up to when at your best. [With John M. Thomas] ◊

Watch your thoughts; or they become Frank Outlaw's if you're not careful, but emotional. [On top of Frank Outlaw]

It's regrettable that what most common men consider laughable, can be of Tao, says Lao-zi somewhere

IT CAN be sort of handy that brute men fairly regularly show their character by what they think laughable, agreeable and regrettable. [With William James and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe] ◊ (#3.1)

Gist

1. Ladies and gentemen of good, solid conformity should remain steady and uncramped.
2. Watch the standards you live.
3. Some good, decent and relevant standards of Tao may look insensible, foolish, ridiculous, as they are laughed at by others. A nudge: study them.

Literature  



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