Writing and Discussion Prompts Think of people you know that have character. What qualities do they possess? Compare your answers with your classmates. How do you believe people acquire character & how could you teach someone to have character? Which is your favorite quote and why? (Write it on an index card and, memorize it. Then place it where you will see it often.) What does the quote mean to you? How does the quotation tie in to what we have studied and discussed? How can you apply this quote to your life, so that your life becomes a little richer, fuller, and eudaemonistic?

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Character is simply habit long continued. — Plutarch 

You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans.
— Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. president (b. 1911

The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.
 19th century British politician Thomas Babington Macaulay

Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.  Samuel Smiles

Be careful of your thoughts
          For your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words
          For your words become your actions
Be careful of your actions
          For your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits
          For your habits become your character
Be careful of your character
          For your character becomes your destiny.     Anon

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures.
--Horace Greeley (1811-1872), New York newspaper editor

Ninety-nice percent of leadership failures are failures of character. General Norman Schwarzkopf

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character. 
—  Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860)

Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test.   Rick Warren

Every man has three characters: that which he shows, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has. — Alphonse Karr, French journalist (1808-1890)

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that  
destiny is likely to be.   --George Santayana, "The German Mind: A Philosophical Diagnosis"

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
— Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and 26th president (1858-1919)

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.   --Elmer G. Letterman                    

Character is knowing the good, loving the good and doing the good.— Thomas Lickona

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
— Albert Einstein, Swiss-American mathematician, physicist and public philosopher (1879-1955)

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly   and courageously. This is how character is built.  
--Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)

The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character, sow a character, and you reap a destiny. -- G. D. Boardman.

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist, playwright, scientist and philosopher (1749-1832)

The best index to a person’s character is (a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can’t fight back.
— Abigail van Buren (Pauline Esther Friedman), American newspaper advice columnist (1918-2002)

 The kind of life we want depends on the kind of people we are – on our character.  Robert  Bellah, “Habits of the Heart”

Character, not circumstance, makes the person.
— Booker T. Washington, American educator and civil rights activist (1856-1915)

A person's character is what it is. It's a little like a  marriage-- only without the option of divorce. You can work  
on it and try to make it better, but basically you have to  take the bitter with the sweet.  Hendrick Hertzberg  

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.   --James A. Froude (1818 - 1894)— Baron Thomas Babington Macauley, English historian and statesman (1800-1859)

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. — Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader (1929-1968)

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. 
— Helen Keller, American social activist, public speaker and author (1880-1968)

A man's character is his fate.  — Heraclitus, Greek philosopher (c. 540-c. 475 B.C.)

Character is what you are in the dark.— Rev. Dwight Moody
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“Character is our moral maturity, which is our willingness to do the right thing even when – perhaps especially when – it costs us something.”   Hunter Page 144

 "…character is the sum total of our habits, our personal assortment of virtues and vices.” Page 146

 “Aristotle wrote, “Moral virtue comes about as a result of habit….We become what we repeatedly do.” Page 147

“Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state….Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its ever so little scar.” William James (quoted in Hunter page 148)

 “Aristotle agreed: ‘The habits we form from childhood make no small difference – rather they make all the difference’.”   (from Hunter page 148)

 “Developing character is winning those battles repeatedly until it begins to become habit.” 144

 How can we judge character?
“There is an old saying that you can judge people’s character by how they treat people who can do nothing for them.” Hunter page 145

What is Hunter's Elizabeth Morin story
She is an elderly woman who died at 89. She said the following to Hunter when she was dying:
”Jim, you know, my older friends are like they were when they were younger, only more so….those of my friends who were selfish and self-centered thirty years ago – well , you ought to see them now. They come in my room,, sit by my bed, talk about themselves and their problems for ninety minutes, and then leave. I am left wondering why they came.”  page 150 [The point is, we spend our lives developing our virtues (our character). These become so pronounced as we age that they become more easily visible, like a caricature.
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Maya Angelou Quotation:

I received the following Maya Angelou quotations on character  via email. Enjoy reading it and respond to the discussion question at the end of the quotation.

Maya Angelou was interviewed by Oprah on her 70+ birthday.
Can you find the connection between her words and our discussions on character?
Maya Angelou said the following:

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today,
life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."