Both Self-restraint and Unrestraint are a matter of extremes as compared with the character of the mass of mankind; the restrained man shows more and the unrestrained man less steadfastness than most men are capable of.
Whatever may be the pros and cons of going to the public theatre, it is a patent fact that it has undermined the morals and ruined the character of many a youth in his country.
One thing about this face was very strange and startling. You could not look upon it in its most cheerful mood without feeling that it had some extraordinary capacity of expressing terror. It was not on the surface. It was in no one feature that it lingered. You could not take the eyes or mouth, or lines upon the cheek, and say, if this or that were otherwise, it would not be so. Yet there it always lurked-something for ever dimly seen, but ever there, and never absent for a moment.
I do not believe it is in the character of the British people to begrudge the lion's share to those who have genuinely played the lion's part. They are ready to recognise that those who create the wealth - and I mean not only material but intellectual wealth - enrich the whole nation.
The haggard aspect of the little old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among old churches and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils with his own hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was in keeping with himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he.
There are certain artists and filmmakers who, I get the impression, are trying to show off how bad their characters can be, how immoral their characters can be.
I love it when you like a character, and then she does something you don't like, and you hate her for a while - then you love her again. I'd like to see her have unlikable moments that the audience understands and sympathizes with.
To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.
We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate thier virtue or vice by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath ever moment....One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zsig zag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficent distance and it straightens itslef to the average tendency.
In spite of warnings, change rarely occurs until the status quo becomes more painful than change. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
You are always training yourself to be, mind and body, as clear as crystal, and you always are, and never change; whereas I am a muddy, solitary, moping weed.
Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.