Arthur Helps Quotes

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

Human improvement is from within outward.

There is no man that lives who does not need to be drilled, disciplined, and developed into something higher and nobler and better than he is by nature. Life is one prolonged birth.

The soul, like the body, acquires vigor by the exercise of all its faculties. In the midst of the world, in overcoming difficulties, in conquering selfishness, indolence, and fear--in all the occasions of duty, it employs, and reveals by employing, energies that render it efficient and robust--that broaden its scope, adjust its powers, and mature it with a rich experience.

Some are born virtuous, some become virtuous. To be good by nature is indeed fortunate but to become good is like walking on a double-edged sword; it takes a longer time and is more painful.

The test of progress is the amount of renunciation that one has attained.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

The walls of that grand edifice called a good character have to be worked at during life.

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself.

It's in the act of having to do things that you don't want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego.

Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

One may as well be asleep as to read for anything but to improve his mind and morals, and regulate his conduct.

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.

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.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Being somebody who wants to be religious doesn't make me perfect and doesn't make me necessarily any better than anybody else. It maybe makes me better than I would have been if I didn't have that level.

All real education is the architecture of the soul.

My future's about trying to be a better man.

Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.

Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

Sufis teach that we first must battle and destroy the evil within ourselves by shining upon it the good within, and then we learn to battle the evil in others by helping their higher selves gain control of their lower selves.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.