Character Quotes - Page 203

What our view of the effectiveness of religion in history does at once make evident as to its nature is--first, its necessary distinction; second, its necessary supremacy. These characters though external have been so essential to its fruitfulness, as to justify the statement that without them religion is not religion. A merged religion and a negligible or subordinate religion are no religion.

We never know a greater character unless there is in ourselves something congenial to it.

One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.

I never wanted to be commissioned to paint portraits. I like to choose my own subject and make a character study from it.

Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community; character is what you have when you go away.

Every thing in human character goes to wreck, under the reign of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a corresponding and proportional life and energy.

When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses - which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you're playing a cartoon character.

If you know what it is before you even start, it's not as interesting. Central to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That's why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations. I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is. I have to worry less about what the character means if I trust the director.

I had to focus and create a character in Bagger Vance, not just do my 'Will Smith' thing and get paid.

I'm starting to be a lot more comfortable with allowing people to decide for themselves and almost creating a situation that forces people to decide for themselves whether they like it or don't like it or agree with the character or disagree with the character.

Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day.

I love the process of auditioning and having the chance to play a million different characters in one week - it's great.

The idea of the straight man is very important. But I'd rather it be somebody else, because it's not as fun. And when I say somebody else, of course I mean Jason Bateman. He's born to play boring characters because he's such a bore. He's one of the most boring human beings.

All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it's my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk.

One's character is set at an early age. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life. I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.

In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the levelling influence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practises so many petty deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.

The very difference of character in marriage produces a harmonious combination.

Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character

I think that it's important to try to keep reality. I think that Gabriel Garcia Marquez speaks a lot about reality in his magical realism. So I don't think we have to be hyper-realistic. But we have to understand the pressures that undergird the lives of the characters within that novel.

I thought some of Mrs. White's material was prophetic. I felt some of her insights were extremely helpful and I regarded her as a sister in the Lord. I wasn't out to attack Ellen White's character.

Politicians tend to live "in character" and many a public figure has come to imitate the journalism that describes him.

The character of the subject must influence the choice of the method of its representation.

It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh.

No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. ... The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood.

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.