It’s not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them – the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.[Не ум главное, а то, что направляет его, – натура, сердце, благородные свойства, развитие.]
There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.
Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.
Character calls forth character.
What we call our destiny is truly our character, and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
What a man’s mind can create, man’s character can control.
There may be no heroic connotation to the word “persistence,” but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel.[Also known as:]Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.
The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
Our character is determined more by the absence of certain experiences than by the experiences we have undergone.[Unser Charakter wird noch mehr durch den Mangel gewisser Erlebnisse, als durch Das, was man erlebt, bestimmt.]
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too.
I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.
And what makes you think you’re a main character in anything but your own mind?
