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Character Quotes

Browse 17579 quotes about Character.

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Character Quotes

“In civilized places idleness, once the prerequisite for abstract thought, poetry, religion, philosophy, and falling in love, has become a character flaw. In America we've managed to stamp it out almost completely, and few people under forty can remember a single moment of it, even in earliest childhood. The phrase 'spare time' has vanished from the land.”

PeoplePhilosophyMomentsCharacterAmericaRememberFallLandChildhoodFalling In LovePhrasesAbstractFortyFlawsCivilizedSparesStampsIdlenessSingle MomPhilosophy Of ReligionPrerequisitesSpare TimeCharacter Flaws
Book:Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories
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“Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education.”

MenMayHas BeensCharacterAgeGivenOpinionCenturyDegreesMen And WomenExpectedEducatedMannersStreamsPopular OpinionVindication
Book:Vindication of the Rights of Women
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“I remember how surprised I was when my first novel was about to be published and I was informed that I could be sued for anything any one of my characters said. 'But I often don't agree with what they say,' I protested. The lawyer was not interested in the clear distinction I make between my own voice and the voices of my characters. Neither, I have found, are many of my readers.”

FirstsSaidCharacterRememberFoundVoiceMy OwnNovelClearReaderAgreeLawyerDistinctionNot Interested
Book:Outlander: Short Stories and Essays
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“It is easier for the reader to judge, by a thousand times, than for the writer to invent. The writer must summon his Idea out of nowhere, and his characters out of nothing, and catch words as they fly, and nail them to the page. The reader has something to go by and somewhere to start from, given to him freely and with great generosity by the writer. And still the reader feels free to find fault.”

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Author:Fay Weldon
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“Society,--the only field where the sexes have ever met on terms of equality, the arena where character is formed and studied, the cradle and the realm of public opinion, the crucible of ideas, the world's university, at once a school and a theater, the spur and the crown of ambition, the tribunal which unmasks pretension and stamps real merit, the power that gives government leave to be, and outruns the lazy Church in fixing the moral sense of the eye.”

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Book:Speeches, Lectures, and Letters
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“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.”

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Book:Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)
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“A letter is not a dialogue or even an omniscient exposition. It is a fabric of surfaces, a mask, a form as well suited to affectations as to the affections. The letter is, by its natural shape, self-justifying; it is one's own evidence, deposition, a self-serving testimony. In a letter the writer holds all the cards, controls everything about himself and about those assertions he wishes to make concerning events or the worth of others. For completely self-centered characters, the letter form is a complex and rewarding activity.”

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Book:Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature
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“Any piece of furniture, I don't care how beautiful it is, has got to be lived with, and kicked about, and rubbed down, and mistreated by servants, and repolished, and knocked around and dusted and sat on or slept in or eaten off of before it develops its real character ... A good deal like human beings.”

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Book:SHOW BOAT SO BIG CIMARRON
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“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know... that he was once a man like us.... Here, then, is eternal life - to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves... the same as all Gods have done before you.”

KnowsMenFirstsDoneCharacterHeavenSecretPrinciplesWiseEternalCertaintyEternal LifeExaltedTrue GodCharacter Of God
Author:Joseph Smith, Jr.
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“Think of anger as a muscle. The way you express anger isn't the way that I do, or you. If you have a good director, you will find that he's getting you to use an entirely different muscle that you never even knew you had - it's real hard and sore, then after a while it becomes normal. And you discover all these new muscles when you enter a new character - that's what a director does for you.”

IfsThinkingWayDoeDifferentRealHardCharacterUseDirectorsNormalMusclesGood DirectorsExpressing Anger
Author:Jane Fonda
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