J. C. Ryle Quotes

You become like the people you spend the most time with.

Beware of the company you keep. See that you associate with the right type of people.

On the choice of friends, Our good or evil name depends.

As the quality of water changes with the nature of the soil; So will a man’s reason vary with the quality of his friends.

The sisters and brothers that you meet give you the materials which your character uses to build itself. It is said that some people are born great, others achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. In truth, the ways in which your character is built have to do with all three of those. Those around you, those you choose, and those who choose you.

Choose your friends carefully, for you will tend to be like them and be found where they choose to go.

Considering the company I keep in this place, that is hardly surprising.

Some would argue that you're as successful as the company you keep. Certainly there is a connection between our friends and who we are.

We become like the five people we spend most of our time with; Oh, we've got to be picky, and you might have to fire a few people who don't belong in that inner circle because they can't help you be your best and further your purpose.

It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with.

A pleasing personality helps you win friends and influence people. Add character to that formula, and keep those friends and maintain that influence.

A man is known by the company he keeps

You are who you are by virtue of the company you keep.

In high school, I used to think it was "like sooooo cool" if a guy had an awesome car. Now none of that matters. These days I look for character and honesty and trust.

…I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws.' 'So's everybody's,' said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. 'Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.

What characters do must grow out of who they are, and who they are is, in turn, influenced by what you make happen to them.

I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who said 90 percent of successful moviemaking is in the casting. The same is true in life. Who you are exposed to, who you choose to surround yourself with, is a unique variable in all of our experiences and it is hugely important in making us who we are. Seek out interesting characters, tough adversaries and strong mentors and your life can be rich, textured, highly entertaining and successful, like a Best Picture winner. Surround yourself with dullards, people of vanilla safety and unextraordinary ease, and you may find your life going straight to DVD.

For character too is a process and an unfolding. . . among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful. . . .

I write about relationships and I try to create real-life characters.

Anyone has outside influences. They are the results of the cosmic roll of the dice: this person is born Aragon the Ranger, this person is born a prisoner in North Korea, this person is born Carlos the Dwarf. Some of these things are out of our control, but that doesn't mean that they can't be changed. A character, just like a person in real life, is a summation of her actions and feelings. Our actions and emotions are not performed against nothing, they do not arise from dust, we are in constant friction, and/or flow with our surroundings.

Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold; the shy, confident; the lazy, active; and the impetuous, prudent and peaceful.

Honesty, willingness to exert oneself, friendship - all these things shaped me too.

The persuasion of a friend is a strong thing.

Situation seems to be the mould in which men's characters are formed.

Every person with whom you interact is a part of the person you are becoming. Not a single interaction with a single person is left out of the process of your becoming.