Character assessment

“ On the other hand, just so far as even one spark of true knowledge is a light on the way, to the degree in which one little adjustment helps men to harmonize with nature and her eternal forces, and in the measure in which one solid step adds to the causeway which man is building out of the mire of ignorance to the heights of wisdom—in so much is the science of character analysis an aid to man and his striving toward perfection and happiness. ”

“ Fortunately, this study must be combined with another that it implies, i.e., the character and nature of the individual. The one without the other is unthinkable. Whoever aims to study a man’s character must first of all attend to his ways of expression, inasmuch as these are most significant of a man’s qualities, and most illuminating. A man is as he speaks. ”

“ Or suppose, again, that the character is known, and the environment the same as others of which we have had experience, yet even here the question arises, Are you able to generalize laws of the action and reaction of character and circumstances, when character does not mean disposition or temperament (the man is more than these) ? If you can not class characters, so as to deduce particulars from them, then even the premises we have supposed you to possess are useless to you. ”

“ But it is certain that a good or bad character exists only then when its maxims of desire and action express themselves in fact. The emphasis must be on the fact; what is factual may be discovered, and these discoveries may be of use. ”

“ She weighed this, a forefinger against a cheek.
“The big ways are those which indicate character, aren’t they? While the little ones only make for habits. Men differ as to their habits, but in character they’re all cut on the same pattern—two or three patterns at most.” ”

“ Tens of thousands of men and women have attempted to analyze human character, but most of them became lost in a maze of apparent contradictions and gave up in despair, content to follow impression and intuition. Though they became discouraged and abandoned the field, each of these workers contributed something of value to the subject, and to-day we have a science of character analysis exact enough to add very greatly to our wisdom in dealing with humanity and its problems. ”

“ Give him simple, lifelike character; that is all he wants. "For me, the only condition of character is that it be human, and that is enough. If I wished to know what was human, I should study humanity." ”

“ Careful analysis of yourself, however, with your own intimate knowledge of the depths of your being will do more than give you an understanding of your own character. It will give you a better understanding of some, at least, of the laws and principles of character analysis. ”

“ Busy men, moreover, are given to detail, and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision.
The proposition which I here put forward, based on many years of observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide range of character in every individual. ”

“ Since this is true, it is obvious that the work of collecting, verifying, classifying, analyzing, and organizing the facts upon which the science of character analysis is based has been going on from the very dawn of civilization. ”

“ The value set on character, even if the appreciation goes no further than words, has increased very markedly within the last few years, and in reaction against an exclusively mental training we hear louder and louder the plea for the formation and training of character. ”

“ It is a slow but sure growth to which every thought and action lends its aid. To form character is to form grooves in which are to flow the purposes of our lives. It is to adopt principles which are to be the measure of our actions, the criteria of our deeds. This we are doing each day, either consciously or unconsciously. There is character formed by our association with each friend, by every aspiration of the heart, by every object toward which our affections go out, yea, by every thought that flies on its lightning wing through the dark recesses of the brain. ”

“ In the just training of Character, if we first learn to understand the capacities and relations of Affection, Thought, and Life, and look within our own natures until we learn to comprehend how everything pertaining to our being belongs to one of these departments, we shall better appreciate the difficulties to be overcome before we shall be willing to make everything that we do the honest outbirth of everything that we are. ”

“ I contend then that certain features of character, it may be in very varying degrees of intensity, belong to the more active and passionless temperament, and certain other features attend on the more reflective and impassioned temperament. If it can be shown that there are two marked groups of elements in character—the more impassioned group and the less impassioned group—and that each group may be inferred to exist if but one or two of its characteristic elements are clearly seen, why even then much would be gained in the interpretation of history and of daily life. ”

“ The recognition by {18} psychology of respect for personality as one of the three or four most fundamental conditions—if not the most essential of all—of happiness, of character, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of this element of the social consciousness. ”

“ So far we have been concerned with the self and its processes rather than with the actions in which it manifests its activity, with its capacities and tendencies rather than with the actual behaviour in which they are realised. In a word, we have been studying the character of the self rather than its conduct. We must now ask, How is character related to conduct? ”

“ ...I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!" ”

“ By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character? ”

“ And no wonder it should be so, when in order to find out the character of a person, instead of inquiring whether he be a man of virtue, honour, piety, wit, good sense, or learning; the modern question is only, whether he be a Whig or a Tory, under which terms all good and ill qualities are included. ”

“ But most adults also remain suggestible, especially towards mass-suggestion, and towards the propositions which they know to be supported by the whole weight of society, or by long tradition." [79] This also he calls prestige suggestion. Individual suggestibility, he considers, is conditioned by native disposition and character, and dependent upon the relative strengths of the two instincts of self-assertion and subjection. ”

“ Let us take it to ourselves that great character comes out of great thoughts, and that great thought must be initiated by great thinkers; then we shall have a definite aim in education. Thinking and not doing is the source of character. ”

“ In the largest sense these questions are also questions of character, for even if we discard as inadequate the psychology which considers behavior alone as important, conduct is the fruit of character, without which it is sterile. ”

“ He puts into the hands of his public a rod wherewith to scourge him for whatever falls short of intention,—and if tried for falling short of intention, who shall escape? If the reader is left to judge of character by deeds, he becomes himself responsible for any opinions which he may choose to hold. The rule which every student should adopt for himself is that character is to be indicated first by the acts of the personages in a tale, and secondly by their talk. ”

“ The truth is, that even trifling circumstances are the occasions for bringing out the predominant traits of character. They are tests of the nature and quality of the man rather than the causes of future success or failure. ”

“ I fell into the difficulty myself, the other day, when I had occasion to say that a man's character had been influenced, both by his inheritance of certain qualities and by the later circumstances of his education. ”

“ If every fundamental trait of character, which lies beneath every act, and which finds expression in every act, were recognized by the individual as his fundamental trait of character, this individual would be driven to regard every moment of his existence in general, triumphantly as good. ”

“ If we want integrity of character, steadiness, reliability, courage, thoroughness, all the harder qualities that serve as a backbone, we, at least, make others want them also, and strive for them by the power of example that is not set as deliberate good example, for that is as tame as a precept, but the example of the life that is lived, and the truths that are honestly believed in. ”

“ Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved. ”

“ They touch, as I have already said, a great range of character in every individual, but they make no pretension to be a system. They have only an indirect bearing on many phases of character; for in both the active and reflective temperaments there may be found, for example, either wisdom or folly, courage or cowardice, refinement or coarseness. ”

“ Primarily the word character signifies a distinctive mark, cut, engraved, or stamped upon a substance, and by analogy, this is likewise character in the sense in which it concerns education. A "man of character" is one in whom acquired qualities, orderly and consistent, stand out on the background of natural temperament, as the result of training and especially of self-discipline, and therefore stamped or engraved upon something receptive which was prepared for them. ”

“ Do you ask me to define what I mean by personal influence? It is the sum total of what a man is, and its effect upon another. Some one has said, “Every man is what God made him,” and some are considerably more so. That which we call character is the sum total of all his tendencies, habits, appetite and passions. The terms character and reputation are too often confused. Character is what you really are; reputation is what some one else would have you.
Every man has something of good in him. Probably none of us can say that we are all goodness. ”

“ What we do claim for the science of character analysis is that it is classified knowledge based upon sound principles; that it is as accurate as the science of medicine; that it can be imparted to others ”

“ A person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture—is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has a character. ”

“ It is by a study and comparison of people belonging to these general types, the careful noting of resemblances and differences, that the science of character analysis becomes almost as easy as the reading of a book. If you see a man for the first time who resembles in many important particulars of appearance some man you know well, study him to see whether he will not manifest in much the same way the same characteristics as your friend. This kind of observation, intelligently made, is the basis of accuracy and swiftness in making analyses. ”

“ We are interested not only in learning what this man did, but in coming to know, as far as may be practicable, what manner of man he was. It is all-important in a study of development of character to have placed within reach the utterances of the man himself. ”

“ The art of judging of character from the external appearance, especially from the countenance, is founded upon the belief, which has long and generally prevailed, that there is an intimate connection between the features and expression of the face and the qualities and habits of the mind. ”

“ Now it is this selective character of every rational conscious process, a character as manifest to consciousness as it is ultimately significant for the constitution of all Being, — it is this character, I say, which to my mind is responsible above all for the Individuality which we have already characterized as belonging to the whole of Being, and which we shall now find as equally characistic of every region of finite Being. ”

“ A true character is reducible to one characteristic, one preponderant tendency which ensures its unity and stability throughout life. This conception is somewhat ideal, but definite characters tend, in varying degrees, to approximate thereto. ”

“ All this seems to suggest to us that our conception of personality must be considerably altered from its ordinary form, and rendered more fluent, in order to tally with the real facts. There is no such thing as a fixed and limited personality, of definite content and character, which we can credit to our account, or to the account of our friends. ”

“ Even the commonest terms of description, such as keen gray eyes, square chin, rugged countenance, are interpreted as showing character, and depart to some degree from pure description. Often the sole purpose of description is to show character, and only those details are introduced which accomplish this purpose.
In life we judge a man's character by his actions, and so in the character sketch we are led to infer his character from what he does. The character indicated by his appearance is corroborated by a statement of his actions and especially by showing how he acts. ”