Equal temperament

“ Each shows the force of temperament—that quality in people which makes the drama of life. But who are the temperamental people? A queen, a cowboy, a famous singer, a wife, a great sculptor and a business man’s secretary are some of them. People as diverse as life ”

“ My answer to this question, based on my own individual temperament, would be Yes, but I cannot help speculating{219} as to the opinions of those whose temperaments are so cool or so unemotional that they can put social precedence, material comfort, or the general welfare of the state, as they see it, above affection or passion. ”

“ It is our temperament which decides our condition; the acquisition of moderate passions, of honest habits, sensible opinions, laudable examples, and practical virtues, is a difficult task, but not impossible when undertaken with reason for one's guide. It is difficult to be virtuous and happy with a temperament so ardent as to sway the passions to its will. ”

“ Ardent feelings well controlled,—that is our ideal; but how few women of strong feelings do control them well, and how few who have perfect self-control have very strong feelings!
Which shall we choose, the strong feelings or the self-control? We have not complete choice in the matter, for we must begin with the temperament we are born with. Others may choose to love or hate us for the temperament we are not responsible for, but what can we do for ourselves? ”

“ He, who determines to respect the laws of his being, will study his [21] own temperament, and that of the other party, and weigh the excesses and defects, as one convinced by the general analogy of animated nature, that the physical and mental character, the constitutional and moral temperament of the offspring, in the ordinary course of things, will be a compound of that of the parents. ”

“ But whatever the cause of heterogeneous personality may be, we find the extreme examples of it in the psychopathic temperament, of which I spoke in my first lecture. All writers about that temperament make the inner heterogeneity prominent in their descriptions. Frequently, indeed, it is only this trait that leads us to ascribe that temperament to a man at all. ”

“ What then is a Temperament but a mixing together of these determining forces, a certain blending manifested in the constitution by signs, or traits, which we denominate character. The different races of mankind must have their several standards of temperament, for the peculiarities of one are not fully descriptive of, and applicable to the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What sports of circumstances we are! I was looking round the table at lunch to-day and puzzling for the hundredth time over the question of temperament. Does it interest you at all? Do you find it a difficulty? Why are some of us born into the world handicapped with temperaments which hold us in chains all our days, and others with some natural charm or quality of mind which acts as an open sesame wherever they go? Look at Miggles! A plain, lonely old woman, without a sou. ”

“ Do we give our love to a face, or to a temperament? I swear to you that I could not have known that woman's temperament more intimately if we had made our confidences in each other's arms. I knew everything of her, except the trifles which a stranger learns in the moment of being presented— her height, her complexion, her name, whether she was married or single. ”

“ The force of the will, the vigour of the personality, the impulse of the spirit in its becoming, this is the wondrous power which galvanises matter and organically quickens it; which sustains life, equips it, and fits it for its march towards ever renewed, ever improved finalities. It is not temperament which is the basis of character, but character which is the basis of temperament. If we reverse this proposition, every moral conception of life becomes absurd, and every spiritual value appears ineffectual. ”

“ What right have I to demand a perfection I can't offer? I have known people to marry who imagined each other perfect, and then come to court for a separation on the ground of incompatibility of temperament. ”

“ From the weary experience of working in constant intercourse with men whose temper and practice and many of whose theories were directly antagonistic to his own, although identified with them in the public mind by a common responsibility, he learned to subdue those elements of his temperament that worked against the success of what he had most loyally at heart. ”

“ How conceive that we whose age is not the same, whose bodies are so different, whose characters are well-defined, and whose careers are opposite should respond to the same influences? Why, each of us responds to the veriest trifles according to his own temperament.... ”

“ The delicacy of their sex, the vivid perceptibility of their mind, and the soft and engaging virtues of their heart, which weave themselves into the rugged recesses of man's masculine temperament and constitute him a fit member of society, render them entitled to the warmest affections of your heart, and to the generous protection of your arm. ”

“ One timid, self-distrustful temperament needs frequently to bask in the sunshine of your approval, while another, somewhat predisposed to vanity and self-consciousness, feeds a more bracing moral climate. ”

“ The absolute openness of their minds and hearts to one another makes their happiness far more dependent on the moral and mental qualities of their companions than upon their physical. A genial temperament, a wide-grasping, godlike intellect, a poet soul, are incomparably more fascinating to them than the most dazzling combination conceivable of mere bodily graces. ”

“ We sometimes see the apparently contradictory temperaments of the melancholic and sanguine in the same person, but, generally speaking, one temperament dominates, modified by one or more of the others. This makes one of the sources of the variety of character we see in those about us, no one person having precisely the same modification of temperament, to say nothing of the difference of intellectual gifts. ”

“ If not, why should women of the same temperament be unfit for them? The peculiarities of the temperament are, no doubt, within certain limits, an obstacle to success in some employments, though an aid to it in others. But when the occupation is suitable to the temperament, and sometimes even when it is unsuitable, the most brilliant examples of success are continually given by the men of high nervous sensibility. ”

“ One of these is the individual's congenital temperament, his talents, his strength of will, and the vividness or vagueness of his imagination. Education, understood in its more general sense, is the other. Now, men varying as they do in respect of their congenital characters, the strength of their romantic wishes bears naturally some proportion to their own capacities for attempting to satisfy these wishes for themselves. ”

“ I incline to think that individuality is fatal and primitive, that temperament reaches far back, but is alternable, and that character is more recent and susceptible of voluntary or involuntary modifications. ”

“ In this temperament we find repose or even gentleness, quiet reflection, tenacity of purpose. The feelings—love, or hate, or joy, or grief, or anger, or jealousy—are more or less deep and enduring. In this class also there are fine characters, especially (as in the unimpassioned) when the mental gifts are high and the training refined. In this class too are found perhaps the worst characters which degrade the human race. ”

“ The sanguine temperament rendered me very sensible to the attractions of voluptuousness: I was always cheerful and ever ready to pass from one enjoyment to another, and I was at the same time very skillful in inventing new pleasures. Thence, I suppose, my natural disposition to make fresh acquaintances, and to break with them so readily, although always for a good reason, and never through mere fickleness. The errors caused by temperament are not to be corrected, because our temperament is perfectly independent of our strength: it is not the case with our character. ”

“ If we admit the existence of the temperate character, it ought to find its place here. Can we admit it, or ought it not rather to be looked on as a purely ideal category? Though we may admit that persons are actually to be found in whom feeling, thought, and action are present in strictly equal proportions, ought we not to consider this as the absolute suppression of character, i.e., of any marks of individuality? ”

“ In connection with this type of temperament or at any rate the temperament which is not easily fixed in one passional vise, I have this to say: that, in spite of all the theories which hold in regard to morals and monogamy, life in general appears to be chronically and perhaps incurably varietistic and pluralistic in its tastes and emotions. We hear much of one life, one love, but how many actually attain to that ideal—if it is one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These are largely matters of temperament or of mood. The attitude of many of us changes from day to day, from book to book; but at heart we all have a preference, a prejudice in favor of certain methods of writing, while others awake our antagonism. ”

“ But we—you and I—the dominant, evolved race—the salt of the earth and the masters thereof! We are made for each other. The supreme call is of kind, and we are of kind. Reason and feeling dictate it. Your very instinct demands it. ”

“ Persons possessing a predominance of the Mental Temperament should seek consorts having more of the Vital and Motive. Those having an excess of Vitality, a consort more largely endowed with the Mental and Motive. While those endowed with the large bones and strong muscles, peculiar to the Motive Temperament, need the electrifying influence of the Mental, combined with the nourishment of the Vital.
It does not follow that perfect blending of temperamental conditions will produce a happy marriage. ”

“ In temperament, you are inclined to materialism and are not religious in any orthodox way. You are strongly intuitive, impressionable, rather emotional. Learn to become even in your temper, and be careful how you bestow your love. ”

“ The proposition is that in the active temperament the intellectual faculties are disproportionately strong—the passions are feebler and lag behind; in the reflective temperament the passions are the stronger in proportion to the mental powers. Character is dominated more by the intellect in one case, more by the emotions in the other. In all sane and healthful characters (and only these are considered here) the intellectual and emotional elements are both distinctly present. The most active men think; the most reflective men act. ”

“ More especially must we conclude, provisionally at least, that a buoyant, hopeful, elated temperament lacks some other virtues, aptitudes, or powers, such as are seen flourishing in the men whose temperament is sombre, inclining to despondency. ”

“ Past training and individual differences in temperament not only limit the possibilities that do occur to us; they seriously distort, color, and qualify those of which we become conscious. We forecast differently and with differing degrees of accuracy the consequences of those possible courses of action which do occur to us according to the influence and stimulation which particular native traits and acquired impulses have in our conduct. ”

“ If a body that is united with a temperament has the probability of subsisting for a protracted time, and of retaining its compound substance, it is called ‘permanent,’ or ‘perfect;’ if not, ‘imperfect,’ or ‘wanting permanence.’”—Lower down: “And there can be no temperament so equalised that the elements in it should be exactly of the same quantity and mode. ”

“ Differing frequently in character and in intellectual power, a basic similarity of temperament gives the various writers discussed a remarkable spiritual affinity. For in each one the wandering instinct is strong. Sometimes it may take a physical, sometimes an intellectual expression—sometimes both. But always it shows itself, and always it is opposed to the routine and conventions of ordinary life.
These papers are primarily studies in temperament; and the literary aspects have been subordinated to the personal element. ”

“ I have my own peculiar temperament, I have my own method of preaching, and my method and temperament necessitate errors. I am not worthy to be related in the hundred-thousandth degree to those more happy men who never make a mistake in the pulpit. I make a great many. ”

“ Strength of character will be hers, not, perhaps, so much the stern sense of justice that most marks the masculine conscience, as the full and earnest affection that adds mercy to justice and love to duty. ”

“ I might as well have decreed that I should not look the same and be the same—that all my habits of thought and traits of character should not be my own. Imagine that a tree in your garden had will and intelligence. ”

“ Are they not a mirror which often does, and always should, reflect the soul? For instance, is not a person of mild temper, gentle in manners? Has not another a bold and independent disposition, a forward and fearless manner? ”

“ O one quality of the mind and heart is more important as an element conducive to worldly success than civility—that feeling of kindness and love for our fellow-beings which is expressed in pleasing manners. Yet how many of our young men, with an affected contempt for the forms and conventionalities of life, assume to despise those delicate attentions, that exquisite tenderness of thought and manner, that mark the true gentleman. ”