What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens: citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.
One of the first memories I have was watching Whoopi Goldberg perform her one-woman show on Broadway on HBO. She moved seamlessly through an array of spirited and soul-stirring characters, each one holding a mirror up to me and allowing me in many ways to see a reflection of myself on screen.
Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.
....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.
You only learn when you give your whole being to something. When you give your whole being to mathematics,you learn; but when you are in a state of contradiction, when you do not want to learn but are forced to learn, then it becomes merely a process of accumulation. To learn is like reading a novel with innumerable characters; it requires your full attention, not contradictory attention.
I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly feed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.
Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.
Ultimately, physical resemblance isn't as important as whether this person can bring this character to life in a way that's compelling and makes me care about what happens to them.
Those who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed; and are not ashamed of what they ought to be - such men, embracing erroneous views, enter the woeful path.
I'd been concerned all along that the character of the president in the West Wing pilot would throw the ensemble out of whack, that that character would simply take up all the oxygen in a room. I wanted to hold off bringing this character in until the last possible moment.
What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.