Character

"Character is simply habit long enough continued." -- Plutarch

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -- Helen Keller

"Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. he must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him." -- Cicero

"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one." -- James A Froude

"People seem not so see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Most people say that is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character." -- Albert Einstein

"Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"Character, not circumstance, makes the person." -- Booker T. Washington

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig." -- Woodrow Wilson

"We are what we seem to be." Willard Gaylin

"Our lives teach us who we are." -- Salman Rushdie

A simple Google search will reveal all kinds of quote on all kinds of subjects. If only we had a Google search engine inside us that could perform the same service. I remember taking a class from SLCC, it was a college success class and I remember the professor using the analogy of a worker inside our brains who had the job of retrieving, managing, and filing things for us. It would be interesting to interview that worker of ours to see what logic is used for putting things where they are put. Is part of that logic reflective of our character? It makes me think of the country song that says "It's the little things, that make me love you so" and the chorus says "Those little things you do that make me love you/They're all I need to make my dreams come true/And you know what tears me all to pieces/Is the way you tell me that you love me too." (It was hard to type that without singing it to myself in my head as I typed). Anyway, it's the little things that show our character to those around us.

As Emerson also said, "What you are doing thunders so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you are saying." It is the things we do that say who we are. The good news is, if you don't like what you are portraying, it's always possible to change it, one little thing at a time.