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Character Quotes

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Character Quotes

“Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act... a "doing" rather than a "being". There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results. If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”

IfsDoeSaidCharacterTurnsSexResultsBehindsIdentityExpressionConsequenceGenderDistinctionConstructsBeing ThereGender IdentitySex And Gender
Author:Judith Butler
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“One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him.”

ReasonCharacterCertainDifficultPresidentLevelsBreakStyleDignityMereNobleFamiliarEaseToneRulersConventionalEtiquetteAttainmentAdmirableIndicationDoubtfulManlyBreak ThroughUtteranceConfidentialPersonal CharacterPresident Lincoln
Book:Abraham Lincoln
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“A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.”

MenWorldHeartCharacterPastWiseTypeSorrowFindingsVisibleThrownBroadsReverenceLuminousVergeFrailGleam
Book:Miscellaneous poems. Memorial verses. Sonnets. I-XXVII. L'Envoi. Vision of Sir Launfal
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“Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities his preeminence over them simply and solely in the number and in the fantastic and unnecessary character of his wants, physical, moral, aesthetic, and intellectual. Had his whole life not been a quest for the superfluous, he would never have established himself as inexpugnably as he has done in the necessary.”

MenWantDoneWholeCharacterLyingDifferencesNumbersMoralIntellectualWhole LifeChiefsFantasticExcessAestheticQuestsUnnecessarySubjectiveBrutesSuperfluousPropensity
Book:Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays
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“The truth has no need to be uttered to be made apparent, and ... one may perhaps gather it with more certainty, without waiting for words and without even taking any account of them, from countless outward signs, even from certain invisible phenomena, analogous in the sphere of human character to what atmospheric changes are in the physical world.”

WorldNeedsHumansMayMadeCharacterTruthCertainWaitingAccountsInvisibleCertaintySpheres
Book:In Search of Lost Time, Volume III: The Guermantes Way
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“Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.”

WantFeelsWellsCharacterTogetherSufferingStrongInterestNovelHellSuccessfulLandTestsAffairBeing SuccessfulDivided
Book:The Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated Edition): Novels, Short Stories, Memoir, Travel Books, Letters, Biography, Articles & Speeches: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, Yankee in King Arthur's Court…
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“No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.”

ThinkingMenWorldGivingFirstsPersonsCharacterValuesUnderstandingDarkCommonAcceptingOpinionCreaturesCapacityRateCastsContraryCommon SenseLeapProposalMatrimony
Book:Moll Flanders
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“From the beginning it was drilled into me that a golf course was a place where character fully reveals itself -- both its strengths and its flaws. As a result, I learned early not only to fix my ball marks but also to congratulate an opponent on a good shot, avoid walking ahead of a player preparing to shoot, remain perfectly still when someone else was playing, and a score of other small courtesies that revealed, in my father's mind, one's abiding respect for the game.”

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Author:Arnold Palmer
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“By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?”

MenMindMeanImportantCharacterSeemsPleasureResultsOpinionStudyGreaterGainsValuableGuestsBiographiesAcquaintanceElevation
Book:Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Complete
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“It is therefore, the interest of all, that every one, from birth, should be well educated, physically and mentally, that society may be improved in its character, - that everyone should be beneficially employed, physically and mentally, that the greatest amount of wealth may be created, and knowledge attained, - that everyone should be placed in the midst of those external circumstances that will produce the greatest number of pleasurable sensations, through the longest life, that man may be made truly intelligent, moral and happy, and be thus prepared to enter upon the coming Millennium.”

MenShouldWellsMayMadeCharacterInterestWealthNumbersMoralProduceAmountBirthCircumstancesIntelligentPreparedEducatedMidstSensationsEmployedMillenniumWell Educated
Author:Robert Owen
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“If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord's word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah's testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah's fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts.”

IfsMayCharacterFacesSpiritValuesSpeakStrongLordCasesSupportModernAuthorityPaperMassJazzAdministrationErasCompareBeastPlatoTestimonyRespectableHerdsAthensWild BeastsGentilesCollateralFace ValueAthenians
Author:Albert J. Nock
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“According to my observations, mankind are among the most easily tamable and domesticable of all creatures in the animal world. They are readily reducible to submission, so readily conditionable (to coin a word) as to exhibit an almost incredibly enduring patience under restraint and oppression of the most flagrant character. So far are they from displaying any overweening love of freedom that they show a singular contentment with a condition of servitorship, often showing a curious canine pride in it, and again often simply unaware that they are existing in that condition.”

WorldCharacterShowsAnimalConditionsMankindPrideCreaturesEndureOppressionObservationCuriousContentmentRestraintCoinsSubmissionExhibitsCanineAnimal World
Author:Albert J. Nock
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“I do not invent characters. There they are. That's who they are. That's their nature. They talk and they behave the way they want to behave. I don't have a character behaving one way, then a point comes in the play where the person has to either stay or leave. If I had it plotted that the person leaves, then the person leaves. If that's what the person wants to do. I let the person do what the person wants or has to do at the time of the event.”

IfsWayWantPersonsPlayCharacterEventsOne WayBehave
Author:Edward Albee
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“That is who Barack Obama is - a person of admirable character - and that is who he has remained for me over these last four years. I have not agreed with his every decision, but never once have I seen him break his cool, lose his composure, or abandon his insightful perspective - even during the most serious and/or absurd national disasters.”

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Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
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“For the lost are lost by nature, all your ideas of moral regeneration will make no difference, there is AN INNATE DETERMINISM, there is an undeniable incurability in suicide, crime, idiocy, madness, there is an invincible cuckoldry in man, there is a congenital weakness of the character, a castration of the mind.”

MenMindIdeasCharacterLostDifferencesMoralCrimeWeaknessMadnessSuicideInnateInvincibleDeterminismRegenerationIdiocyCastration
Author:Antonin Artaud
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“He [the artist] ought to have 'these powerful organs of expression' - colour and chiaroscuro - entirely at his command, that he may use them in every possible form, as well as that he may do with the most perfect freedom; therefore, whether he wishes to make the subject of a joyous, solemn, or meditative character, by flinging over it the cheerful aspect which the sun bestows, by a proper disposition of shade, or by the appearances that beautify its arising or its setting, a true "General Effect" should never be lost sight of.”

ShouldWellsMayCharacterUseFormArtistLostWishPerfectPowerfulSunSubjectsEffectsExpressionOughtAspectSightAppearanceSettingCommandSettingsColourOver ItShadeOrgansDispositionCheerfulSolemnJoyousChiaroscuro
Author:John Constable
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“Great occasions rally great principles, and brace the mind to a lofty bearing, a bearing that is even above itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, leave it to show the goodness and beauty it has in its own disposition. And here precisely is the superhuman glory of Christ as a character, that He is just as perfect, exhibits just as great a spirit in little trials as in great ones.”

MindLittlesCharacterShowsSpiritChristPerfectPrinciplesGoodnessGloryTrialsOccasionsDispositionExhibitsLoftyGreat OnesSuperhumanBraces
Book:Nature and the Supernatural: As Together Constituting the One System of God
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