Character Is Defined By Quotes & Sayings

Temptation can be defined as an inducement to do evil. Three powerful forces work together to ruin a believer's character and witness: Satan, the world system, and our own lustful "flesh" tendencies. — Charles Stanley

Whether these characters are lovable or detestable, they're lovable or detestable in a TV way - defined by a minimal set of traits that are endlessly reiterated and incapable of expansion or alteration, a fixed loop. — Jonathan Rosenbaum

You are not defined by the clothes on your body, the shoes on your feet, or the money in your pocket. You are defined by the choices you make, the character that you choose to have, and the respect you show yourself and to those around you. — Quinn Loftis

We recognize that our progress as a species does not have to be defined in terms of wealth or material and physical growth any more than our progress as individuals has to be defined in terms of physical growth. Physical growth of the body reaches a limit, but the character and the soul of the individual continues to grow, or at least has a chance to continue, often to our last breath. It is simple minded to define our well being in material terms, when that well-being has an aesthetic dimension, and intellectual dimension, a moral dimension. — Wes Jackson

Without entering here into a dissertation upon the historical romance, it may be said that in proper hands it has been and should continue to be one of the most valued and valuable expressions of the literary art. To render and maintain it so, however, it is necessary that certain well-defined limits should be set upon the licence which its writers are to enjoy; it is necessary that the work should be honest work; that preparation for it should be made by a sound, painstaking study of the period to be represented, to the end that a true impression may first be formed and then conveyed. Thus, considering how much more far-reaching is the novel than any other form of literature, the good results that must wait upon such endeavours are beyond question. The neglect of them - the distortion of character to suit the romancer's ends, the like distortion of historical facts, the gross anachronisms arising out of a lack of study, have done much to bring the historical romance into disrepute. — Rafael Sabatini

The existential attitude is one of involvement in contrast to a merely theoretical or detached attitude. "Existential" in this sense can be defined as participating in a situation, especially a cognitive situation, with the whole of one's existence ... There are realms of reality or - more exactly - of abstraction from reality in which the most complete detachment is the adequate cognitive approach. Everything which can be expressed in terms of quantitative measurement has this character. But it is most inadequate to apply the same approach to reality in its infinite concreteness. A self which has become a matter of calculation and management has ceased to be a self. It has become a thing. You must participate in a self in order to know what it is. But by participating you change it. In all existential knowledge both subject and object are transformed by the very act of knowing. — Paul Tillich

It was easy to be good and kind in times of plenty. The trying times were the moments that defined a man.
And love? Love was something that did much to change a person. It brought joy as it brought suffering, and in turn brought about those moments that defined one's character. Love gave life to the lifeless. It was the greatest of all living powers.
But, as with all things, love had a dark side to it. — Renee Ahdieh

Life changes. It's usually in the blink of an eye. One minute everything's fine, if not stagnant; then, it's not. But your character's not defined by what happens to you but by how you respond to those emotionally significant events. Who will you become when your life turns on a dime? — Bobby Cole

Few endeavors, if any at all, I find to be inherently mature or inherently immature. Maturity is neither defined by one's particular preferences nor by one's particular activities; rather, it is defined by the strength of one's character. — Criss Jami

The shadow of a character is defined by its maker...while a heroine is personified by its actions and relatability. So writers can create a world with a heroine that has impact and finish with everessence lights at the dims of its shadows — Raquelle Stepney

What the fates have writ, men shall not erase . . . . How many times he [Lut] had uttered those words. But what exactly did they mean? That one's fate was inalterably fixed? A man's entire life? Was there no chance for redemption? Though he had never revealed this to anyone, especially not the elders, he'd long entertained the notion that perhaps not all of a man's life was preordained. For, if so, what was the point of living? Perhaps, just perhaps, he dared to imagine, impediments were placed in our paths by the gods, and a man was judged by how well he dealt with those obstacles . . . . Instead of a man being wholly defined by his fate, perhaps a man's very character was defined by his response to the fate that was spun for him. Couldn't it at least be possible? — James Jennewein

The character truest to itself becomes eccentric rather than immovably centered, as Emerson defined the noble character of the hero. At the edge, the certainty of borders gives way. We are more subject to invasions, less able to mobilize defenses, less sure of who we really are, even as we may be perceived by others as a person of character. The dislocation of self from center to indefinite edge merges us more with the world, so that we can feel blest by everything. — James Hillman

A man or a woman can't be defined by the pain inflicted in them by others or by someone else's issues, but by their own character and actions. — Linda Alfiori

Depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. — Leonardo Da Vinci

It's funny what [producer Richard Zanuck said about even though you can't quite place when the book or the story came into your life, and I do vaguely remember roughly five years old reading versions of Alice in Wonderland, but the thing is the characters. You always know the characters. Everyone knows the characters and they're very well-defined characters, which I always thought was fascinating. Most people who haven't read the book definitely know the characters and reference them. — Johnny Depp

People always tell me I'm nothing like my character. Well, hopefully not! He's a character who's very defined. He was purposefully written by Jo Rowling as very one-dimensional in the first few books, because you're supposed to hate him. — Tom Felton

[A Letter to the Culture that Raised Me] I'm not here to be on display. And my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object, or a pair of legs to sell shoes. I'm a soul, a mind, a servant of God. My worth is defined by the beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character. So I won't worship your beauty standards, and I don't submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher. — Yasmin Mogahed

Paranoid can also be defined as "carefully smart"! Almost every episode of SVU is based on a true story; I'd watched my fill until they moronically cut Detective Stabler's fine-ass character. — Angela Graham

It is not eminent talent that is required to ensure success in any pursuit, so much as purpose-not merely the power to achieve, but the will to labour energetically and perseveringly. Hence energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man-in a word, it is the Man himself. — Samuel Smiles

And one cannot discharge the duty of loyalty without the patient and an open minded study of the institution that marked the country and defined its character. — Bainbridge Colby

I'm a Jesuit when it comes to structure, but I really think that structure is defined by character. Everything serves that master. — Chris Eigeman

Plato defined good as threefold in character: good in the soul, expressed through the virtues; good in the body, expressed through the symmetry and endurance of the parts; and good in the external world, expressed through social position and companionship. — Manly P. Hall

Energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man. — Samuel Smiles

Biologists have long attempted by chemical means to induce in higher organisms predictable and specific changes which thereafter could be transmitted in series as hereditary characters. Among microorganisms the most striking example of inheritable and specific alterations in cell structure and function that can be experimentally induced and are reproducible under well defined and adequately controlled conditions is the transformation of specific types of Pneumococcus. — Oswald Avery

A hit man's character is defined above all by narcissism, that complex mix of egotism and self-hatred. — Suketu Mehta

The entitlement mentality so carefully cultivated by liberal academics, politicians, clergymen, and journalists continues to corrode the self-sufficiency that once defined the American character. — Mona Charen

There's a fashion, or maybe you could call it a necessity, in French cinema to make social films, which is to say films in which the characters are defined by their social context. — Louis Garrel

Our character isn't defined by the battles we win or lose, but by the battles we dare to fight. — Robert Beatty

Dramatically, the moment in 'Gravity' that was hardest to nail down is when Ryan is in the Soyuz capsule and she realizes that she's out of fuel. That's when the character's arc gets defined. — Alfonso Cuaron

Success can be defined as how hard you continue to fight when they tell you that the battle is over. — Mark W. Boyer

The worth of a person's thought is measured not by the quantity but by the quality of the support that it has got and this quality is defined by a single factor, which is only people's human character. — Anuj

To have defined and sure opinions, fixed and known instincts, passions and character - all that is the horror of turning our soul into a fact, materialize it and make it external. — Fernando Pessoa

There is a defined gulf
Between credit and character
If you doubt this, ask any banker;
He will advise that character is nice
But it is not collateral. — Evan Rhys

If I'm not clear with the character, I can't do anything with it. But once I get that character, the possibilities are endless. When you have such a defined character, I feel like I can actually read the phone book and make it funny. — Eliza Coupe

I embrace my blackness, just as I do my conservatism and my Christianity, but I don't want to be defined or pigeonholed by any one of the many elements that make up my character. — J. C. Watts

Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, and PostgreSQL let you create user-defined types (UDTs). The simplest UDT is a standard or built-in data type (CHARACTER, INTEGER, and so on) with additional check and other constraints. You can define the data type marital_status, for example, as a single-character CHARACTER data type that allows only the values S, M, W, D, or NULL (for single, married, widowed, divorced, or unknown). More-complex UDTs are similar to classes in object-oriented programming languages such as Java or Python. You can define a UDT once and use it in multiple tables, rather than repeat its definition in each table in which it's used. Search your DBMS documentation for user-defined type. UDTs are created in standard SQL with the statement CREATE TYPE. — Chris Fehily

Sin may then be defined ultimately as anything in the creature which does not express, or which is contrary to, the holy character of the Creator — J. Oliver Buswell

Good intentions are simply not enough. Our character is defined and our lives are determined not by what we want, say or think, but by what we do. — Michael Josephson

A person's true identity can often be difficult to discern, even to themselves, causing one to question their character, their calling, their very existence. For most, time gives clarity, but for others, these questions remained unanswered for an identity can not be fully defined when it is a guarded secret. — Emily Thorne

Character is defined by what you do when no one is looking, but the visible can shatter any perfect impression. — Stephanie Ayers

When I do a film, the days before or the night before, I throw up. Sometimes it's just in my mouth and I swallow it back, but sometimes it's real. Whatever it is, it's hard. I don't do the first five or ten minutes of my character's appearance in a movie until the middle of the shooting schedule because I don't want him to be defined by my nervousness. So, we do the middle of the picture first. — Donald Sutherland

If mind is seen not as a threat but as a guide to emotion, if intellect is seen neither as a guarantee of character nor as an inevitable danger to it, if theory is conceived as something serviceable but not necessarily subordinate or inferior to practice, and if our democratic aspirations are defined in such realistic and defensible terms as to admit of excellence, all these supposed antagonisms lose their force. — Richard Hofstadter

New York, I thought, was a city defined by its flaws. In every possible way, its virtues were overwhelmed by its vices, as Jekyll was by Hyde. Yet it was these very vices that gave the city its character - like tar in an oak barrel lending its flavor to Scotch. — Miles Watson

The depth and strength of our character is defined by our moral code. People only reveal themselves when they're thrown out of the usual conditions of their lives. That's when the truth of who they are is revealed ... — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The colonel laughed, effectively halting Bingley's speech. "Uncharacteristically reclusive? Do we speak if the same man? Darcy's very character is defined by his reclusiveness! He prefers to keep his own counsel, especially when he ought to do the opposite - the bacon-brained buffoon. — KaraLynne Mackrory

I think it's necessary when you're dealing with a dark show that has explosion and violence to have defined moments of lightness and humor, even romance. It's important, and it deepens the character, of course. — Wentworth Miller

True tragedy may be defined as a dramatic work in which the outward failure of the principal personage is compensated for by the dignity and greatness of his character. — Joseph Wood Krutch

He thought America's character would be defined by how it treated its vanquished enemies, and he wanted to graduate from bitter wartime grievances to the forgiving posture of peace. — Ron Chernow

Science has too long focused on intelligence & talent as determiners of success. And it's not. The key to success is to set a specific long-term goal and to do whatever it takes until the goal has been achieved. That's called GRIT (defined as courage and resolve; strength of character). — Bob Mayer

She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, 'truth, reverence, and good will,' then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great. — Louisa May Alcott

Sometimes at night I slipped into the studio and worked myself up into a rhythmic intoxication to come closer to the slowly rising character. I could feel how everything pointed toward a clearly defined dance figure. The richness of rhythmic ideas was overwhelming — Mary Wigman

When I think about [characters], I like to think of them in their relationships to each other. In the same way, I think that's how humans are ultimately defined. We are our relationships to one another. And a lot of what's interesting about us happens in the context of other people. — John Green

In the "free world" (Natopolis) the centres of ideological orthodoxy are rarely defined. The diversity of intellectual trends within the orthodoxy, the indeterminate and shifting character of its boundaries, the existence of real centres of dissent (and the licence given to even Stalinist opposition)--all these conspire to create the central illusion of "Natopolitan" culture, that there is in fact no orthodoxy but only an infinite variety of opinions among which one is free to choose. — E.P. Thompson

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves. — Leon Trotsky

Our failures make us who we are; they build our character, we are defined by what we do with them, and how we respond to adversity. Without failure there is no growth, no striving for better, no adjusting, or dusting yourself off to try again. — J.W. Lord

Love was something that did much to change a person. It brought joy as it brought suffering, and in turn brought about those moments that defined one's character. — Renee Ahdieh

But things such as 'Harry Potter', all I can do is shape my character, seek the director's approval on that, and basically take it from there. Professor Flitwick in 'Harry Potter', I kind of defined how I saw him from reading the book, and luckily that matched up with the director's vision. — Warwick Davis

Using the stratagem of defining character by what changes and what remains the same, the one constant always seems to be regret. We are defined by the objects of our regret. — Stephen Tobolowsky

The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are clearly defined, and act consistently. — Jerome K. Jerome

As a feminist, I think you never want to have your characters defined by the relationships that they're in, and it did give her a chance to be a sophomore in college without a boyfriend. — Caroline Dries

A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse. — Arthur Miller

Dawn's Spawn:
Cause and Effect
Criticizing the next generation reflects on us. We hold the power to carve out good citizens who will take over the planet and wrest control from us. Step up with your hammer and chisel to create a defined character. Give up your cowardly position as friend and brave the battle of good parenting.
Kamil Ali — Kamil Ali

One can feel the immense joy of Amy Hill Hearth's engagement in her first novel. It radiates through every scene and through every page. Sometimes, an exceptional writer finds an exceptional premise, and the result is a truly exceptional book. Such is the case with Miss Dreamsville ... The writing is brilliant, especially the dialogue through which the characters are defined. — Philip K. Jason

On 'Scrubs,' I played a very unusual character who pretty much was defined by saying and doing strange things, so it was easy to improvise around that. — Neil Flynn

Good coaching may be defined as the development of character, personality and habits of players, plus the teaching of fundamentals and team play. — Clair Bee

The chief character in this narrative is the Caribbean Sea, one of the world's most alluring bodies of water, a rare gem among the oceans, defined by the islands that form a chain of lovely jewels to the north and east — James A. Michener

For me, you don't ever want to be defined by the color of your skin. You want to be defined by your work ethic, the person that you are, your character, your personality. That's what I've tried to go out and do. — Robert Griffin III

Your leadership principles give that unique character to your leadership brand. When all your responses, decisions, choices and leadership practices are filtered through your well defined principles, you have automatically connected yourself to making the success of your leadership excellence brand more deliberate. — Archibald Marwizi

Any story dealing, however seriously, with homosexual love is taken to be a story about homosexuality while stories dealing with heterosexual love are seen as stories about the individual people they portray. This is as much a problem today for American filmmakers who cannot conceive of the presence of gay characters in a film unless the specific subject of the film is homosexuality. Lesbians and gay men are thereby classified as purely sexual creatures, people defined solely by their sexual urges. — Vito Russo

I began to consider, upon the thought of "permanently" relocating, everything New York had made me. When I arrived, I was like a half-carved sculpture, my personality still and undefined image. But the city wears you down, chisels away at everything you don't need, streamlines your emotions and character until you are hard cut, fully defined, and perfect like a Rodin sculpture. That is something truly wonderful, the kind of self-crystallyzation not available in any other city. But then, if you stay too long, it keeps on wearing you down, chipping away at traits you cherish, character that you've earned. Stay forever, and it will grind you down to nothing. — Jacob Tomsky