Man is an extraordinarily fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant. It is only by tradition and organisation that anything decent can be got out of him.
Personality is immediately apparent, from birth, and I don't think it really changes.
When a tiger changes his nature, Englishmen will change theirs.
It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought, artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren't. Never something you set out to be.
Human nature is not totally fixed, but on any realistic scale, evolutionary processes are much too slow to affect it.
The core of people don't change... what you see is what you get.
In reality, people are who they are and they'll never really change.
Character, like porcelain-ware, must be painted before it is glazed. There can be no change of color after it is burned in.
You will never make the crab walk straight.
Personality traits form at an early age and are fixed by early adulthood. Many important things about you change over the course of your lifetime, but your personality isn't one of them.
When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world (the world of fixed traits) success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other (the world of changing qualities) it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.