Walter Scott Quotes

Self-control is the only possible road to character development

A man who is good from docility, and not from stern self-control, has no character.

Where character forbids self-indulgence, transcendence still hovers around.

Character is just another word for having a perfectly disciplined and educated will. A person can make his own character by blending these elements with an intense desire to achieve excellence. Everyone is different in what I will call magnitude, but the capacity to achieve character is still the same.

The discipline of desire is the background of character.

The force of character is cumulative.

Character is not the enemy of self-expression and personal freedom, it is their necessary precondition.

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.

Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.

Sometimes it seems to me that all of life is a struggle to contain the natural impulses of the body and spirit, and that what we call character represents only the degree to which we are successful in this endeavor.

Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.

Sorrow and suffering make for character if they are voluntarily borne, but not if they are imposed.

The battle for self-discipline may leave you a bit bruised and battered but always a better person.

Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it.

Our very business is to teach the great lesson of self-denial and humility to our people, and how unfit is it then that we should be proud ourselves!

We often pray for purity, unselfishness, for the highest qualities of character, and forget that these things cannot be given, but must be earned.

Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.

If we didn't have to stand against temptation, we'd never know our own spiritual strength.

Discipline is built by consistently performing small acts of courage.

You must have the strength to discipline yourselves so that you can accomplish your goals and enhance your natural strengths. Habits of self-discipline formed while you are young will become part of the makeup of your character for the rest of your lives.

I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.

Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.

Self-command is the main elegance.

And the glory of character is in affronting the horrors of depravity to draw thence new nobilities of power: as Art lives and thrills in new use and combining of contrasts, and mining into the dark evermore for blacker pits of night.

A private victory leads to a public victory and a corporate blessing, because God turns His face toward those who will demonstrate character when no one is looking.