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Character Quotes

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Character Quotes

“Integrity is the core of our character.”

Character Courage Virtue Honesty Honor Integrity Core Weak Foundation

Author:L. Lionel Kendrick

“The absurdist is concerned with the search for meaning in the Universe. He believes this search to be meaningless--hence the disintegration of plot, character, and language in absurdist drama. Order is a falsehood that we, God, those who came before us, have imposed on a random universe. However, the absurdist is confronted with a curious paradox: though he believes the Universe to be meaningless, he cannot abandon the search for meaning--or he will die.”

Believe Character Order Dies Universe Language Drama Concerned Curious Plot Abandon Paradox Meaningless Falsehood Search For Meaning Disintegration Those Who Came Before Us

Author:Walter Wykes

“Character is everything, especially these days when that's what publishers are asking for. Make sure that yours have child appeal. Also don't have a huge cast of characters. One or two is best, four, the maximum.”

Children Two Character Four Huge Asking Casts Appeals These Days Publishers Maximum

Author:Kirby Larson

“The rule of God is not tyranny, for it does not partake of a political or governmental character -- it is not a rule of authority. God is not a governor of the universe, for a governor rules over those of a like nature with himself, and exercises a political and judicial power, while God exercises a creative, a preserving, and a determinative power of an altogether different kind. If I am a servant of God, I am under no tyranny; for God does not govern, but supports, sustains, and directs me.”

Source: Remarks on the science of history: followed by An a priori autobiography

“Some men -- not all men -- see always before them an ideal, a mental picture if you will, of what they ought to be, and are not. Whoso seeks to follow this ideal revealed to the mental vision, whoso seeks to attain to conformity with it, will find it enlarge itself, and remove from him. He that follows it will improve his own moral character, but the ideal will remain always above him and before him, prompting him to new exertions.”

Ifs Men Character Moral Vision He Man Ought Ideals Remove Conformity Idealism Exertion Moral Character

Book:The blazing star; with an appendix treating of the Jewish Kabbala, also a tract on the philosophy of H. Spencer, and one on New-England transcendentalism

Source: The blazing star; with an appendix treating of the Jewish Kabbala, also a tract on the philosophy of H. Spencer, and one on New-England transcendentalism

“Man, having an ideal before him of that which he ought to be, and is not, and acting as though he possessed the character he ought to have, but has not, comes, by the very virtue of his aspiration, to possess the character he imagines.”

Men Character Acting Virtue Imagine Ought Ideals Aspiration Possessed

Author:William Batchelder Greene

“If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.”

“We all recall the cruel stepmother in fairy tales. That archetype is often a necessary element in a fairy tale so that the heroine/hero can become a person of character and power. Stories of heroes and heroines often begin with a wound or loss or injustice and end with heroic acts of restoration.”

Source: The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know

“Avant-garde theatre, with its distrust of the individual (that bourgeois invention), tends to go beyond [character] and the psychological approach in search of a syntax of types and characters which are "deconstructed and post-individual.”

Character Individual Type Approach Theatre Invention Psychological Posts Distrust Bourgeois Avant Garde Syntax

Book:Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis

Source: Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis

“Well, one of the things we're supposed to be able to do as playwrights is write from a place of empathy, get into another character's shoes and experience things both mundane and tragic. And people don't - like me right now - people aren't necessarily the most eloquent when trying to express their emotions. I guess I feel as a playwright that those people deserve a voice, too, a voice that isn't so articulate that they themselves can no longer identify with it.”

People Feels Writing Trying Wells Character Able Voice Emotion Right Now Empathy Deserve Shoes Like Me Supposed To Be Tragic Mundane Playwright Eloquent Don't Like Me

Author:Tracy Letts

“The only characters I've made to resemble real people have been grotesques.”

People Writing Has Beens Made Real Character

Author:Glen Cook

“Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by "bagmen," familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way.”

“I don't know where the characters are going to go or what's going to happen. I know that something inevitable will happen. I know that they want certain things and they're in a certain room and they smell like this and they look like that. More often than not, an entropy creeps in that strangles me, and then the inevitable happens. I don't know if I have the ability to write an ending like My Fair Lady's, when everyone gets what they want after a few minor conflicts. If I tried to write that it would just be false. Or I'd have someone enter with a machine gun.”

Ifs Knows Want Writing Looks Character Happens Certain Ability Rooms Conflict Gun Fairs Machines Smell Inevitable Minors Creeps Entropy Machine Guns My Fair Lady

Author:Adam Rapp

“I write what I want to write. Period. I don't write novels-for-hire using media tie-in characters, I don't write suspense novels or thrillers. I write horror. And if no one wants to buy my books, I'll just keep writing them until they do sell--and get a job at Taco Bell in the meantime.”

Ifs Want Writing Book Character Jobs Novel Media Periods Horror Sells Suspense Ties Bells Thrillers Using Me Tacos Taco Bell Suspense Novels

Author:Bentley Little

“Most people are middle class. Most people do wish their lives were better than they are. And I think by making my main characters ordinary, average guys, it helps readers identify with their problems. It also helps ground the supernatural events that follow in a recognizable reality and perhaps gives some of my wilder scenarios a little verisimilitude.”

People Thinking Giving Littles Character Helping Problem Reality Guy Wish Class Middle Events Reader Ordinary Average Middle Class Scenarios Main Characters Wilder

Author:Bentley Little

“I suppose that literature as it is won't die, science fiction included. But games are becoming an extremely important part of the science fiction world, including games that are adapted from books (or vice versa: books that are adapted from games). It's wonderful to have the opportunity to play and see your favorite characters on the screen, but the opportunity to read a book does not become less attractive.”

“Charity should be self-sustainable. That is, it should create more wealth rather than perpetuating the cycle of poverty and dependence. In this sense, the best form of charity would be providing quality education for children and more importantly, building a good character in them.”

“When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.”

Firsts Country Character Wanted Political Used Force Powerful Written Century Policy Majors Tools Scripts Officials Brutal Uniforms Emperor Banned Written Word

Author:Ha Jin

“These ceremonies and the National Statuary Hall will teach the youth of the land in succeeding generations as they come and go that the chief end of human effort in a sublunary view should be usefulness to mankind, and that all true fame which should be perpetuated by public pictures, statues, and monuments, is to be acquired only by noble deeds and high achievements and the establishment of a character founded upon the principles of truth, uprightness, and inflexible integrity.”

“True honour is an attachment to honest and beneficent principles, and a good reputation; and prompts a man to do good to others, and indeed to all men, at his own cost, pains, or peril. False honour is a pretence to this character, but does things that destroy it: And the abuse of honour is called honour, by those who from that good word borrow credit to act basely, rashly, or foolishly.”

Men Doe Character Pain Principles Honest Honor Cost Abuse Credit Reputation Attachment Honour Peril Prompts Pretence Good Words Good Reputation

Author:Thomas Gordon

“The act of the soul, in surrendering itself into the hands of Christ, forms a connecting bond between Him as the Vine and the soul as the branches, which communicates life, strength, nourishment, and beauty. In a word, with a just view of the character, and a supreme attachment to the person of Christ, the believer yields himself into His hands as a full and complete Saviour. Him he receives; upon Him he rests, and rests for time and eternity.”

Source: Essays on the distinguishing traits of Christian character

“The public's continuing ambivalence about cultural matters is all the more striking given that the political conversation on these issues has for 30 years been dominated by an aggressive, radical right-wing insurgency that has achieved an influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Its potent secret weapon has been the guilt and anxiety about desire that inform the character of Americans regardless of ideology; appealing to those largely unconscious emotions, the right has disarmed, intimidated, paralyzed its opposition.”

“The emancipation of the scholars and scientists from philosophy is according to [Nietzsche] only a part of the democratic movement, i.e. of the emancipation of the low from subordination to the high. ... The plebeian character of the contemporary scholar or scientist is due to the fact that he has no reverence for himself.”

Philosophy Character Facts Movement Lows Scientist Democratic Dues Contemporary Reverence Scholar Emancipation Subordination Plebeians

Book:Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy

Source: Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy

“To avert the danger [posed by theory] to life, Nietzsche could choose one of two ways: he could insist on the strictly esoteric character of the theoretical analysis of life - that is, restore the Platonic notion of the noble delusion - or else he could deny the possibility of theory proper and so conceive of thought as essentially subservient to, or dependent on, life or fate... If not Nietzsche himself, at any rate his successors [Heidegger] adopted the second alternative.”

“Someone from the Internet Writing Workshop sent me a link to the Gender Genie, where you paste in a section of text and it uses an algorithm to detect whether the author is male or female. Or, if you're an author, you can tell whether you're really nailing your opposite-sex characters. I mean, nailing their dialog.”

Ifs Writing Mean Character Use Sex Internet Female Opposites Males Gender Links Sections Workshops Algorithms Genies Writing Workshop

Author:Max Barry

“Nietzsche himself was a great moralist; his writings abound with value judgments about individuals, character types, modes of thinking, and national traits. It is as if he develops immoralist psychology in order to tame his own nature, to keep his own greatest vice in check.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Character Values Order Individual Psychology Type Judgment Vices Checks Traits Moralist

Book:Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky

“Education is the chief remedy for all those great evils which afflict the country. Education will not only cultivate and improve the intellect of the nation, but will also purify its character.”

Country Character Evil Nations Intellect Chiefs Remedy

Author:Keshub Chandra Sen

“The truths which are represented in England and Western countries generally, are those which refer to force of character, earnestness of purpose, conscientious strictness, noble charity, practical duty, whilst the truths which I find peculiarly developed in India - developed to a greater extent than anywhere else, - and in the Eastern countries generally, are those which have reference to sweetness of communion, sweetness of temper, meekness and resignation unto God.”

Country Character Purpose Force Greater Duty India England Charity Western Noble Practicals Temper Communion Sweetness Eastern Resignation Meekness Earnestness

Author:Keshub Chandra Sen

“Character is itself a fortune.”

Character Fortune

Book:Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct

Source: Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct

“We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.”

Way Ideas Character Use Reality Language Loses Depends Messages Tasks Strive Communicate Objectives Description Scope Discernment Our Words Suspended

Author:Niels Bohr

“The strongest streak in the American character is a fierce pragmatism that mistrust blind ideology of every stripe and insists on finding what really works.”

Character Findings Blind Ideology Strongest Fierce Mistrust Streaks Stripes Pragmatism American Character

Author:Eric Liu

“The prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hinderances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement.”

Source: Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

“I watched every single Bond movie three or four times, taking in everything I could about how the character had been portrayed in the past, then threw all that away once I started doing the role.”

Character Past Three Roles Four Bond Movie

Author:Daniel Craig

“You can fake your age or mask it, but the passion that moves the characters has to be real.”

Real Character Age Moving Passion Fake Mask Being Real Fake People

Author:Victoria Abril

“Character develops itself in the stream of life.”

Life Character Streams Good Character Best Character

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“When one has praised Turgenev, however, for the beauty of his character and the beautiful truth of his art, one remembers that he, too, was human and therefore less than perfect. His chief failing was, perhaps, that of all the great artists, he was the most lacking in exuberance. That is why he began to be scorned in a world which rated exuberance higher than beauty or love or pity.”

World Humans Art Character Beautiful Remember Artist Perfect Failing Higher Pity Chiefs Lacking Great Art Great Artist Exuberance Scorned

Author:Robert Wilson Lynd

“Swinburne was an absurd character. He was a bird of showy strut and plumage. One could not but admire his glorious feathers; but, as soon as he began to moult ... one saw how very little body there was underneath.”

Littles Character Body Saws Bird Admire Absurd Glorious Feathers Showy

Author:Robert Wilson Lynd

“We send our [peacekeepers] off to some disputed zone, full of local intrigue and power blocs and uncertainty and danger, and they are supposed to save lives not with their weapons, but through their competence and their character. And they do it.”

Character Danger Weapons Locals Uncertainty Zone Intrigue Competence Save A Life Peacekeepers

Author:Romeo LeBlanc

“It's a tremendous challenge, because there have been so many characters created over the years. Every time you think you come up with a great name, you find out somebody has already done it. Dreaming up the stories isn't that hard, but coming up with a good title is the toughest part.”

Thinking Years Has Beens Hard Done Character Stories Dream Names Challenges Come Up Titles

Author:Stan Lee

“Beautiful women seldom want to act. They are afraid of emotion and they do not try to extract anything from a character that they are portraying, because in expressing emotion they may encourage crow's feet and laughing wrinkles. They avoid anything that will disturb their placidity of countenance, for placidity of countenance insures a smooth skin.”

Want Trying May Character Beautiful Emotion Laughing Feet Skins Smooth Beautiful Women Crow Wrinkles Countenance Portraying Expressing Emotions Smooth Skin

Author:Laurette Taylor

“Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.”

Men Inspirational Character Shows Laughing Human Nature Identity Integrity Laughter Smile Clever Hypocrisy Clever Man Smile And Laughter Happy Laughter Inspirational Laughter

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“[Ed Grimley] lives in a retirement home in New Jersey. It's called the Retirement Home in New Jersey for Characters Who Were Interesting in the '80s for About an Hour. He's there with the Whiners, Gumby and Jon Lovitz's 'That's the ticket' guy.”

Character Home Guy Hours Interesting Retirement Tickets 80s Jersey New Jersey Whiners Retirement Homes

Author:Martin Short

“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.”

People Inspirational Character Laughing Personality Laughter Intelligence Betray Personality Flaws

Book:Elective Affinities

Source: Elective Affinities

“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”

Want Inspirational Character Grows Goal Growth Change Development Personal Growth Personal Development Clever Self Development Self Growth Fitness Motivational Change And Growth Personal Growth And Development Change Growth Development And Growth

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.”

Thinking Men Inspirational Character Shows Humor Character Building Laughable Building Character Personality Flaws Character Of A Man Best Character

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Since 1977, there have been many science fiction movies, but none has managed to equal [A New Hope's] blend of adventure, likable characters, and epic storytelling.”

Has Beens Character Fiction Adventure Equal Science Fiction Storytelling Epic New Hope Science Fiction Movie

Author:James Berardinelli

“These two opposed forms of social organization, the modern state and the market, have evolved together through recent centuries, and their mutual interactions have become increasingly crucial to the character and dynamics of international relations in our world.”

Source: The Political Economy of International Relations

“Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.”

“Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of 'interpretation' I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme.”

Mean Ideas Philosophy Character Term Particular Elements Conscious Notion Instance Enjoyed Logical Interpretation Schemes Endeavour

Author:Charles Hartshorne

“At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches of science, mathematics and theoretical physics, which ... offer a less distorted form of knowledge than other branches of science which are interwoven with the pattern of daily life, and the practicality of which seemingly testifies to their realistic character.”

Source: Critical Theory: Selected Essays