Essential Character Quotes

The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.

It's not what the artist does that counts; it's what he is.

What I've found, and what Scripture tells us, is that your faith is not something on the side, something you carry with you - it is inherently who you are.

In our relationships we need to uphold that aspect of the person which is the real person and the soul beyond their own self-doubt.

What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.

I look for what responsibility the character has in telling the story. If you remove the role from the story, can you still tell the story properly? And if the answer is no, then I'm interested.

The background reveals the true being and state of being of the man or thing. If I do not possess the background, I make the man transparent, the thing transparent.

We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation.

Tear man out of his outward circumstances; and what he then is; that only is he.

You can’t change the music of your soul.

One cannot apologize for something fundamental, and a child feels and knows this as well and as deeply as any sage.

There is the physical mind which is mechanical but the awareness which is the essential character (dharma) of the mind is also to some extent present there.

True ornament is not a matter of prettifying externals. It is organic with the structure it adorns, whether a person, a building, or a park. At its best it is an emphasis of structure, a realization in graceful terms of the nature of that which is ornamented

A rapid rendering of a landscape represents only one moment of its existence. I prefer, by insisting upon its essential character, to risk losing charm in order to gain greater stability.

Once a pumpkin, Always a pumpkin.

How many understand that Nature is the essential character of whatever is. It's something you'll find by looking not at, but in, always in. It's always inside the thing, and it makes the outside. And some day, when you get sufficiently proficient in understanding the use of the term, you can tell by the outside pretty much from what's inside.

For me what was very important was to try to capture the essence that might have existed behind the myth, the human essence of the character.

A man's true estate of power and riches is to be in himself; not in his dwelling or position or external relations, but in his own essential character.