George Eliot Quotes

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

Men become old, but they never become good.

Is it possible, I wonder, for a man to truly change? Or do character and habit form the immovable boundaries of our lives?

It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.

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

Suffering is nature's way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.

Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness.

Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity . . .’ He waved his flask around for a moment, then shrugged. ‘They change back.

The ideal of character always runs beyond the attainment.

I like this idea of becoming fully realised.

Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.

One of the best ways to change is to act as if you are the person you want to become. When you behave as if you are a different person, you change on a very basic level - even your physiology changes. When actors and actresses perform, their body chemistry is altered by the roles they play.

Personality is less a finished product than a transitive process. While it has some stable features, it is at the same time continually undergoing change.

Everything in the world can be changed, my dear Florestan, but the human being.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

Just recently I worked with Van Morrison and I came to realize that money can't make a decent human being out of you.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

The writers are writing human beings, and they're writing about the human condition and how difficult it is to function in that condition. I think it's one of the charms of the show, the idea of redemption and working towards becoming better people, for everybody involved.

I think happiness comes from self-acceptance. We all try different things, and we find some comfortable sense of who we are. We look at our parents and learn and grow and move on. We change.

I feel it's important to show that one thing that you do doesn't define you as a human being. It doesn't mean there aren't ramifications or you shouldn't pay for that but its not who you are.

Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

It does us no harm to look over our past shortcomings and plan to improve our characters and actions in the coming year