"A fully grown up tree cannot be bent into a walking stick." Kenyan Proverb
"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." Proverbs 22:1
"A noted scientist observing that “early voyagers fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up the great circles of the Atoll Islands to afford themselves protection in the inner parts,” has disproved this fancy by showing that the insect builders can only live and thrive fronting the open ocean, and in the highly aerated foam of its resistless billows. So it has been commonly thought that protected ease is the most favourable condition of life, whereas all the noblest and strongest lives prove on the contrary that the endurance of hardship is the making of the men, and the factor that distinguishes between existence and vigorous vitality. Hardship makes character." Streams in the Desert 1”
"A person who is truly confident of his or her strength does not need to parade it. A truly brave person does not look for chances to prove it. A resourceful woman can find a way out of a fight. A man of endurance will avoid retaliating. Foolish people find it impossible to avoid strife. Men and women of character can. What kind of person are you?" This statement appears in a number of Bible devotionals. Author unknown
"A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died." Bishop Milton Wright writing about his son, Wilbur, soon after his death
"Are you worsted in a fight?
Are you cheated of your right?
Laugh it off.
Don't make tragedies of trifles.
Don't shoot butterflies with rifles.
Laugh it off.
Does your work get into kinks?
Are you near all sorts of brinks?
Laugh it off.
If it's sanity you're after,
There's no recipe like laughter
Laugh it off.quot; Taken from Modern Methods as shared in Streams in the Desert 2 complied by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman - Lettie Burd Cowman (March 3, 1870 – April 17, 1960), also known as L.B. Cowman, was an American writer and author of the devotional books Streams in the Desert and Springs in the Valley. Cowman published her books under the author name Mrs. Charles E. Cowman. She was also one of the cofounders of The Oriental Missionary Society (later known as OMS International, and eventually One Mission Society).
"Be strong, be kind, be generous of spirit, be understanding and let people know how grateful you are. Don't get even. Comfort the ones I've hurt and let down. Say your prayers and ask for God's understanding and strength. Finish with a smile and some gusto and do what's right and finish strong". (Written in his diary on the night of his defeat to Bill Clinton in 1993) George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.
"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.". James Michener in Chesapeake, published in 1978 - James Albert Michener February 3, 1907 – October 16, 1997) was an American writer. He wrote more than 40 books, most of which were long, fictional family sagas covering the lives of many generations, set in particular geographic locales and incorporating detailed history. Many of his works were bestsellers and were chosen by the Book of the Month Club. He was also known for the meticulous research that went into his books.
"Character - When others speak well of you, you have acceptance; but when the truth speaks well of you, you have character. Character is simply confidence dressed in humility. It keeps its word, its temper and its friends. It has a steady eye, a steady nerve, a steady tongue, and a steady habits. It's silent when it has nothing to say, thoughtful and compassionate when it judges, and is always first to make amends when it's wrong. Character doesn't run scared. It's surefooted, committed, and handles whatever comes along. Character has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is often the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Character never makes excuses. It takes its lumps, learns from its mistakes and becomes wiser. Character knows that courtesy and good manners are nothing more than a series of small sacrifices." (Taken from On the Right Note, December 27, 200?, a publication of KLOVE Radio.)
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones." Phillip Brooks, (December 13, 1835 – January 23, 1893) was an American Episcopal clergyman and author, long the Rector of Boston's Trinity Church and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts, and particularly remembered as lyricist of the Christmas hymn, O Little Town of Bethlehem.
"Do I see that these people despise me, or do I see that they dread me? Can I bear contempt to know that I am despised? It is my duty to bear everything that I cannot help." John Adams, (1735–1826), 2nd president of the US 1797–1801.
"Do right always. It will give you satisfaction in life." Wovoka, P(c. 1856 - September 20, 1932), also known as Jack Wilson, was the Northern Paiute religious leader who founded the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka means "cutter" or "wood cutter" in the Northern Paiute language.
"During humanitarian work overseas, I had come to realize that it's not enough to fight for a better world; we also have to live lives worth fighting for." Eric Greitens, author, in The Heart and the Fist
"Even as he lay dying, Garfield was kind, patient, cheerful and deeply grateful" Almon Ferdinand Rockwell, a close friend of James A. Garfield and of Abraham Lincoln as shared in Destiny Republic by Candice Millard. Rockwell was telling about James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) who was the 20th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881, until his assassination later that year.
"Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece - by thought, choice, courage and determination." H. Jackson Browne, Jr., an American author best known for his inspirational book, Life's Little Instruction Book
"He liked familiar things, things that had been worn in by good people, people he could trust." 3rd person comment about Dooley Barlowe Kavanagh in Come Rain or Come Shine by Jan Karon
"He was incontestable the greatest man I have ever known." Ulysses S. Grant talking about Abraham Lincoln - Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American soldier, politician, and international statesman who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. During the American Civil War, General Grant, with President Abraham Lincoln, led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy.
"Hush, Dorothy," whispered the Tiger; "you'll ruin my reputation if you are not more discreet. It isn't what we are, but what folks think we are, that counts in this world." Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919), better known by his pen name L. Frank Baum, was an American author chiefly known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
"I have sometimes thought that we cannot know any man thoroughly well while he is in perfect health. As the ebb-tide discloses the real lines of the shore and the bed of the sea, so feebleness, sickness, and pain bring out the real character of a man." 20th USA President James A. Garfield
"I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost, that the characters of men are moulded and inspired by what their fathers have done." 20th USA President James A. Garfield
"If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work." Beryl Markham West with the Night
"It cultivates every faculty of the mind, enlarges sypathies, liberalizes thought and feeling, furnishes and approves the highest standards of character." Margaret Phelps, history teacher referring to the field of study of history"
"It is difficulties that show what men are." Epictetus, AD 55 – 135) was a Greek speaking Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present day Pamukkale, Turkey), and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in north-western Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses.
"If you damage the character of another, you damage your own." Yoruba Proverb.
"CHARACTER
It isn't the tranquil and placid sea
That brings out the sailor's skill,
It is the winds and waves that pound his ship,
And toss it about at will.
It is not when life itself is calm
And skies serene and blue,
It is the storms you meet without defeat
That brings out the best in you.
Life's storms are really a trial of skill,
And surely we will find someday
That the honest test brought out the best
And cast all fear away."
E. J. Ritter, Jr. Michigan
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door, you step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to." Bilbo Baggins, the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, as well as a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings.(Offered by Tom McDermott)
"It's not what we know that makes us wise, but what we are." Growing Slowly Wise, by David Roper
"Leadership through character is placed at the heart of the officer's duty." First paragraph of The Armed Forces Officer in 1950
"More painful even than the realization that his brief presidency would be forgotten was the thought that future generations would never know the man he had been." 20th USA President James A. Garfield
"My life is my message." Mahatma Gandhi, (1869–1948), Indian nationalist and spiritual leader; full name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Prominent in the opposition to British rule in India, he pursued a policy of nonviolent civil disobedience. Although he never held government office, he was regarded as the country's supreme political and spiritual leader.
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln, (1809–65), 16th president of the US 1861–65
"None ever looked at or talked with a Meriwether but he heard something which made him look or listen again." George Rockingham Gilmer, (April 11, 1790 – November 16, 1859) was an American statesman and politician writing about Meriwether Lewis' father's family
"Nothing binds us one to the other like a promise kept. Nothing divides us like a promise broken." Mass Mutual - Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company
"Now Harry, you be good." Martha Ellen Young Truman, Harry Truman's mother, who always said this to Harry before he left home. Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the U.S.A.
"Personality is what you are when you are with other people; character is what you are when you are alone." Unknown
"Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors." An African Proverb
"Some men were like the buoys upon tide-water. They float up and down as the current sets this way or that. - If you ask at an emergency where they are, we cannot tell you. We must first consult the almanac. We must know the quarter of the moon, the way of the wind, the time of the tide . . . But gentlemen, our guest . . . is a tower amid the waters . . . He stands there now. The winds have swept by him, the waves dashed around him, the snows of winter have lighted upon him, but still he is there. I ask you, therefore, gentlemen, to drink with me in honor of General Marquis de Lafayette." Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of the Morse code, and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.
“Some of the storms of life come suddenly: a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat. Some come slowly. They appear upon the ragged edges of the horizon no larger than a man's hand, but, trouble that seems so insignificant spreads until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.
Yet it is in the storm that God equips us for service. When God wants an oak He plants it on the moor where the storms will shake it and the rains will beat down upon it, and it is in the midnight battle with elements that the oak wins its rugged fibre and becomes the king of the forest.
When God wants to make a man He puts him into some storm. The history of manhood is always rough and rugged. No man is made until he has been out into the surge of the storm and found the sublime fulfillment of the prayer: 'O God, take me, break me, make me.'
A Frenchman has painted a picture of universal genius. There stand orators, philosophers and martyrs, all who have achieved pre-eminence in any phase of life; the remarkable fact about the picture is this: Every man who is pre-eminent for his ability was first pre-eminent for suffering. In the foreground stands that figure of the man who was denied the promised land, Moses. Beside him is another, feeling his way -- blind Homer. Milton is there, blind and heart-broken. Now comes the form of one who towers above them all. What is His characteristic? His Face is marred more than any man's. The artist might have written under that great picture, 'The Storm.'
The beauties of nature come after the storm. The rugged beauty of the mountain is born in a storm, and the heroes of life are the storm-swept and the battle-scarred. You have been in the storms and swept by the blasts. Have they left you broken, weary, beaten in the valley, or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood and womanhood? Have they left you with more sympathy with the storm-swept and the battle-scarred?” Streams in the Desert 1
“Storms make trees take deeper roots.”Claude McDonald in The Christian Word
"The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear." Socrates, (469–399 bc), ancient Athenian philosopher
"There are no great men, just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are forced by circumstance to meet." Admiral William Halsey Jr., United States Navy
"These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman." Abigail Adams, November 22 [O.S. November 11] 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the wife of John Adams and the mother of John Quincy Adams.
True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. Victor Hugo, 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement
"We can never be like lilies in the garden unless we have spent time as bulbs in the dark, totally ignored." Oswald Chambers (24 July 1874 – 15 November 1917) was an early twentieth-century Scottish Baptist and Holiness Movement evangelist and teacher, best known for the devotional My Utmost for His Highest.
"We must not only give what we have, we must also give what we are." Désiré-Félicien-François-Joseph Mercier (21 November 1851 – 23 January 1926) was a Belgian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and a noted scholar. Mercier is noted for his staunch resistance to the German occupation of 1914–1918 during the Great War.He served as a model of resistance.
"You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket. You will never have an idle hour." John Adams, (1735–1826), 2nd president of the US 1797–1801.
"Your reputation is what you're perceived to be by others, but your character is what you really are. You're the only one that knows your character. You can fool others, but you can't fool yourself." Coach John Wooden, (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010) was an American basketball player and coach
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