Hendrik Hertzberg Quotes

In order for good to blossom it must be cultivated and exercised by constant practice, and to be truly righteous there is required a daily pruning of the evil growth of our characters by a daily repen- tance from sin.

The greatest work in all the world is the building of men and women of character. Without character there is not much that is worthwhile.

I don't want stuff that's compromising to me as a person, but as long as it has a pathway to redemption and has meaning, there's something solid in that in terms of the way I experience it.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

All your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do not build your character, and attain mastery over your thoughts and actions.

In my view, success is earned externally by being better than other people. But character, that sort of unfakeable goodness, is earned by being better than you used to be. And it's about self-confrontation.

It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a charm to any character, and so our struggle with them dies away.

Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character.

Every problem is a character-building opportunity, and the more difficult it is, the greater the potential for building spiritual muscle and moral fiber.

Character grows in the soil of experience with the fertilization of example, the moisture of ambition, and the sunshine of satisfaction. Character cannot be purchased, bargained for, inherited, rented or imported from afar. It must be home-grown. Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all too often in the academic world, that's exactly what we do by not focusing on the character development of young people.

No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

Character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you make that gradually turn who you are, at any given moment, into who you want to be.

Not using faults does not mean that one does not have them.

Literary education is of no value, if it is not able to build up a sound character.

Real religion is about, developing real character; character of compassion, character of humility, the character of determination to grow in all circumstances.

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

Wisdom is the right application of knowledge; and true education...is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character.

Integrity is not something that grownups have and adolescents can aspire to. Integrity is something that all of us, at all ages, are constantly striving for.

We must have life building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas.

Remember that your character is the sum total of your habits.

To me a saint is a severely edited sinner. That's what I think.

Perhaps the greatest definition I think of character and quality is people who when they're truly great rather than making you feel that tall they make you feel that tall, that they're greatness as it were improves you.

He might be a man without character, but she was a woman without courage. Of the two, which was worse?

Getting into a new relationship is like pouring Miracle-Gro on your character defects.