Though not a participant in the Business of life; I am, like the character of Addison and Steele, an impartial (or more or less impartial) Spectator, who finds not a little recreation in watching the antics of those strange and puny puppets called men.
the brut first knows death when it dies, but man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives; and this makes his life at times a questionable good even to him who has not recognised this character of constant anaihilation in the whole of life.
I think all writers are armchair psychologists to some degree or another, and I think a character's sexuality is fascinating. It's a great way to really get at the root of their identity, because it's such a personal thing.
Sejal had not thought of her home, or of India as a whole, as cool. She was dimly aware, however, of a white Westerner habit of wearing other cultures like T-shirts—the sticker bindis on club kids, sindoor in the hair of an unmarried pop star, Hindi characters inked carelessly on tight tank tops and pale flesh. She knew Americans liked to flash a little Indian or Japanese or African. They were always looking for a little pepper to put in their dish.
Anyhow, I've learned one thing now. You only really get to know people when you've had a jolly good row with them. Then and then only can you judge their true characters!
The road to gooď is the roughest and steepest in
the universe. It is a wonder that so many succeed,
no wonder that so many fall. Character has to be
established through a thousand stumbles.
The true key to the declension of the Roman empire which is not to be found in all Gibbon 's immense work may be stated in two words: the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation.
Prepare for the difficult while it is still easy. Deal with the big while it is still small. Difficult undertakings have always started with what easy. Great undertakings always started with what is small. Therefore the sage never strives for the great,And thereby the great is achieved.
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.
Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path of certain progress.
"I know quite enough of myself," said Bella, with a charming air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad job, "and I don't improve upon acquaintance..."
"My comfort is," said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, "that I have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and can't be told too often or too plain..."
He had a certain air of being a handsome man-which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man-which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.