Character Improvement Quotes

Railroads? Electric telegraphs? All honour to them in their place: but they are not progress; they are only the fruits of past progress. No outward and material thing is progress; no machinery causes progress; it merely spreads and makes popular the results of progress. Progress is inward, of the soul.

The principal object of your reading should be for the acquisition of useful knowledge , and the strengthening, refining, and ennobling of your character.

Solitude makes us tougher towards ourselves and tenderer towards others. In both ways it improves our character.

To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.

Never say any man is hopeless, because he only represents a character, a bundle of habits, which can be checked by new and better ones. Character is repeated habits, and repeated habits alone can reform character.

What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.

Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

There have been some stressful months since taking over at Milan, but I think I've improved a lot in terms of character.

No murder or sin or act of barbarism or cruelty has ever been committed by a person fully absorbed in the reading of a book. By this fact alone, we can conclude that readers are nicer people, at least until they put the book down. When we are reading, we are better.

Usually, it gets worse and worse as they downsize your character; mine just kept getting better.

Until we all start to take responsibility, until we do all we can to improve the character of our communities, we'll never break the cycle of violence and indifference.

The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.

The real difficulty is that people have no idea of what education truly is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock-exchange market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of the character of the educated. The girls, we say, do not have to earn; so why should they be educated? As long as such ideas persist there is no hope of our ever knowing the true value of education.