Moral character

“ The moral approbation or condemnation which we feel for the temper, words, and actions of men is felt toward them as personal phenomena. Detached from personality they would no more be subjects of praise or blame than the temperature of the sea, the noise of the wind, or the down-pour of rain183 Moral character belongs to them only as the characteristics and manifestations of the self-conscious and self-directed life of a moral agent. ”

“ The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite. ”

“ But even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable. ”

“ We are aware of the attempts which have been made to invest our emotions with the stamp and attribute of morality: but, in addition to the testimony of our own experience, we have the highest authority for holding that none of the natural feelings or modifications of the human heart partake in any degree of a moral character. ”

“ There is a moral order in the world. Nothing can withstand it. ‘Character is this moral order seen through the medium of an individual nature.’ Society has raised certain artificial distinctions. But they must be recognized. Society is real, and grows out of a genuine need. ”

“ The development of the moral sentiments in the human heart, in early life,—and every thing in fact which relates to the formation of character,—is determined in a far greater degree by sympathy, and by the influence of example, than by formal precepts and didactic instruction. ”

“ Secondly, that while there is diversity as to many points, there is none in its judgments as to the great body of virtues and vices of human life. As to all the49 leading qualities of character and conduct there is full and universal agreement. With respect to all the cardinal virtues, such as justice, kindness, veracity, love, courage, fidelity, generosity, the moral judgments approve them as the magnet owns its pole, in all the multi-form relations and offices of life. ”

“ The growth of the personal character, the reminiscences of a life advancing into perfect consciousness, are largely moulded by the gradual recognition of moral laws, by the sense of mystery evolved in the inevitable struggle between duty and pleasure,--between the desire to do right and the temptation to do wrong. ”

“ To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe, that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. ”

“ The attainment of character through the development of an ideal of self and the systematization of habits and motives is a slow and gradual process, and only rarely is complete independence of judgment attained, which alone renders the highest form of moral conduct possible, when all conduct is determined by will with regard to the realization of ends. ”

“ If it is true, as one has said, that "the test of sound moral character is that it possesses coherence under liberty and has learned those various arts of adaptation to ever-varying circumstance which make it a working quality, constant, rational, and automatic," we must perceive the intimate connection between mental power and moral competency. ”

“ Personal temperament, acquired character, or external conditions may make the feeling greater or less. The mental organization of some persons is more emotional. Education may have given a peculiar development. Temporary circumstances may heighten the excitation. But other things being equal the degree of positiveness in the moral emotions is generally dependent on two things: (a) the clearness with which the moral distinction and the consequent obligation is discerned, and (b) the pureness and tenderness of the person's moral nature. ”

“ But there is something besides. Although there is still much to learn about character, it is certain that we can cultivate the moral courage which springs from instinct and temperament by the choice of our own ideas and actions. ”

“ Again, we find every rational mind so made that it may be controlled by some leading desire of ruling purpose to which all other desires and purposes are subordinate, and that it is the nature of this ruling purpose which constitutes moral character. By moral character is meant that which results from our own choice instead of that which consists in qualities and propensities created by God. ”

“ Moral experience—the actual possession and exercise of good character—is necessary truly to understand moral principles and profitably to apply them. ”

“ What is commonly, in a popular sense, called reason, and is so much recommended in moral discourses, is nothing but a general and calm passion which takes a comprehensive and a distant view of its object, and actuates the will, without exciting any sensible emotion. A man, we say, is diligent in his profession from reason; that is, from a calm desire of riches and fortune. A man adheres to justice from reason; that is, from a calm regard to public good, or to a character with himself and others. ”

“ It will be admitted, that a man of the opinions, and the character, above described, was likely to leave a strong moral impression on any mind principally formed by him, and that his moral teaching was not likely to err on the side of laxity or indulgence. ”

“ The moral is of a most wholesome character, and the plot, incidents, and management, give evidence of great tact, skill and judgment, on the part of the writer. It is a work which the oldest and the youngest may alike read with profit.”—Dollar Newspaper. ”

“ ...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!" ”

“ Yet this very tone of society, and all these standards of honor and uprightness, when traced to their origin, are found to arise from the precepts of revelation. We are all, physically and intellectually, the creatures of circumstance. Experience moulds and develops the intellect. Our moral natures are not innate, but solely and entirely the result of the influences by which we are surrounded. ”

“ The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment. ”

“ It is not enough to ask what is most attractive, what line of life will ensure the greatest material gain or worldly honour? Rather should we ask, Where shall I be safest from moral danger, and, above all, in what position of life, open to me, can I do the most good? ”

“ The thoughts and faculties of your own intellectual frame, and all which you admire as wonderful in the genius of others,—the moral obligation, which, as obeyed or violated, is ever felt by you with delight or with remorse,—the virtues, of which you think as often as you think of those whom you love ”

“ Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids. ”

“ As I consider virtue and vice to consist in action, and not in opinion, and as this action has its seat in the will, and not in the conscience, I shall confine my inquiries chiefly to the influence of physical causes upon that moral power of the mind, which is connected with volition, although many of these causes act likewise upon the conscience, as I shall show hereafter. The state of the moral faculty is visible in actions, which affect the well-being of society. ”

“ Through the fascinating power thus wielded over others a great influence may be exerted to elevate the moral tone of society by presenting pictures of domestic life that shall array the merits and demerits of virtues and vices, delineating those delicate threadings among the counter currents of passions and emotions that control the individual, which escape the observation in actual life. ”

“ The term 'virtue,' for instance, in one sense, namely, as signifying moral excellence in general, without distinction of kind, is strictly a singular term, as being the name of one attribute: but as applied to different varieties of moral excellence—justice, generosity, gentleness and so on—it is a common term, as being a name which is applicable, in the same sense, to a class of attributes. ”

“ In fine, example is of service to us, not in pointing out the precise things to be done, but in exhibiting the beauty, loveliness, and majesty of moral goodness, the possibility of exalted moral attainments, and the varied scope for their exercise in human life. ”

“ The inducements to virtue are, in his view, our humane sentiments, on the one hand, and our self-love, or prudence, on the other; the two classes of motives conspiring to promote both our own good and the good of mankind. ”

“ Besides, independently of their intrinsic merits, whether intellectual or moral, the necessities of their daily life serve to impress them with respect for the great rules of morality, which in most cases were framed for their own protection. ”

“ Again, our judgments of value and of merit are rooted in our sentiments; and our moral principles have the same source, for they are formed by our judgments of moral value.” ↑ The destructive effects of the mechanisation of modern life have lately been admirably set forth, and with much precise illustration, by Dr. ”

“ In the same way no one will wish to deny that the moral feeling, as the natural expression of the inner voice of conscience, constitutes in social life the fundamental condition and the surest foundation for all lofty and noble sentiments. ”

“ Although we must define the Supreme Being as a personality to satisfy our moral consciousness, we must not, we are told, make the same moral consciousness the criterion of the attributes of that personality. ”

“ My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarize the highly refined imagination of the more select classes of poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence; aware that until the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life which the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they would bear the harvest of his happiness. ”

“ This new intellectual life, speaking broadly, has reacted favorably upon the moral life. It has dispelled superstition, destroyed prejudices, widened the outlook of men, and broadened their moral sympathies. ”

“ By as much as this theory of despair is suited to atrophy all nerve for the ethical task, and sink personality from its true intended elevation of divine fellowship and excellence into the inanity of unconscious being, by so much does the Christian truth of the assured success and victory of right and goodness in the advancing kingdom of God's grace and eternal love, exalting the worth and force of personality to the highest, inspire and sustain the moral endeavor. ”

“ Whenever we say, ‘So and so is a good man,’ or ‘That fellow is a villain’; whenever we ask, ‘What ought I to do?’ or ‘Is it wrong for me to do like this?’; whenever we hazard such remarks as ‘Temperance is a virtue and drunkenness a vice’—it is undoubtedly the business of Ethics to discuss such questions and such statements; to argue what is the true answer when we ask what it is right to do, and to give reasons for thinking that our statements about the character of persons or the morality of actions are true or false. ”

“ They concerned the powers and possibilities of man in the crowning endowments of his nature, and in the highest ascent of their evident intention and adaptation. They touched the great problems of personal and social welfare in the most vital relations and decisive interests. So the old sages became moralists and their great themes were the themes of virtue and duty. Not very deeply, however, did they, for centuries, succeed in penetrating the rational principles of the moral life and the authority of the moral judgments. ”

“ It is upon that discipline chiefly that those qualities which I have called the moral qualities of the personal order, and which have their root in truthfulness and courage, depend for their evolution. ”

“ The essential element in the problem is that we are contemplating, not physical movement only, like spasms or waves, but personal deeds, as acts of moral agents.185 Of course, moral quality does not attach to the action of non-moral beings, as the striking of clocks or the barking of dogs, but to deeds of self-directing personality. ”

“ As moral agents, for whom alone exist all the predicaments of merit and demerit, praise and blame, effort and failure, vice and virtue, we are impotent and lost;—we are saved through that in us which is passive and involuntary; we are saved through our affections, it is as beings acted upon and influenced that we are saved! ”

“ But though neither the true source of our Knowledge of Moral Distinctions nor yet the right Motive why we are to choose the Good, this Moral Sense of Pleasure in Virtue, and Pain in Vice, is a psychological fact demanding the investigation of the Moralist. ”

“ But the just harmony of qualities, the exact temper between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual observance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men who have been tried by equally strong temptations, and about whose conduct we possess equally full information. ”

“ Such a widening of the moral horizon is necessary both for enlarging and refining the feeling of duty, and for rendering the meaning of moral terms deeper and more exact. And it stimulates the mind to frame an ideal conception of what is good and praiseworthy. ”