Kevin Stilley

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May 27, 2014 by kevinstilley

Character – select quotes

characterTo enjoy the things we ought, and to hate the things we ought, has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
~ Aristotle

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.
~ Christian Nestell Bovee

You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him up to a heavy load.
~ Paul “Bear” Bryant

A crisis is not only character building; it is character revealing.
~ Rick Casterline

Every one is the son of his own works.
~ Miguel de Cervantes

Character is not cut in marble; it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing…
~ George Eliot

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Conduct of Life

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses and some don’t turn up at all.
~ Sam Ewing

Success is always temporary. When all is said and done, the only thing you’ll have left is your character.
~ Vince Gill

Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
~ Billy Graham

We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions;
We sow our actions, and we reap our habits;
we sow our habits, and we reap our characters;
we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny.
~ Charles Albert Hall

A man’s character is his fate.
~ Heraclitus

The hell to be endured hereafter . . . is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. 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. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be none. The drunken Rip van Winkle in Jefferson’s play excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, ‘I won’t count this time!’ Well, we may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-ends and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering it, and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.”
~ William James, in Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals, page 77

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

To succeed is nothing, it is an accident. But to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different, it is character.
~ Marie Leneru

Good character is like a rubber ball – Thrown down hard – it bounces right back. Good reputation is like a crystal ball – Thrown for gain – shattered and cracked.
~ A. L. Linall, Jr

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.
~ Andre Maurois

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself his own dungeon.
~ John Milton

Character is a perfectly educated will.
~ Novalis

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
~ Thomas Paine

The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
~ Plutarch

A man never shows his own character so plainly as by his manner of portraying another’s.
~ Jean Paul Richter

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.
~ Jean Paul Richter

A man should endeavor to be as pliant as a reed, yet as hard as cedar-wood.
~ The Talmud

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Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Quotes Tagged With: ambition, Blog, character, courage, Ethics, honor, nobility, Praxis, Quotes, strength

February 23, 2013 by kevinstilley

Honesty – select quotes

One lie will destroy a whole reputation for integrity.
~ Baltasar Gracian, in The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
~ Samuel Butler

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fastly misled us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no timepieces so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.
~ Charles Caleb Colton

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
~ Noel Coward

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
~ Charles Dickens

The louder he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.
~ Samuel Johnson

White lies are but the ushers to black ones.
~ Frederick Marryat

An honest man is the noblest work of God.
~ Alexander Pope

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day, and it will be round and full at evening.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
~ Winston Churchill

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
~ Walter Scott

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
~ William Shakespeare

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
~ William Shakespeare

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
~ George Bernard Shaw

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
~ Mark Twain

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
~ Mark Twain

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Blog, character, deception, Ethics, folly, Honesty, integrity, lies, Quotes, truth

October 5, 2008 by kevinstilley

James Michener on Character

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”
~ James Michener, Author

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Action Strategies for Personal Achievement

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: character, James Michener

July 30, 2008 by kevinstilley

Daniel Silva On Character Dialogue & Action

A few days ago, Hugh Hewitt conducted a three hour on-air interview with spy novelist Daniel Silva. You can find the transcript of the interview HERE, and the podcast of the interview HERE.

However, there is one portion of it that will be of particular interest to those of you who write fiction. It addresses the writing process and the manner in which Silva relates to his characters. Check out this excerpt:

HH: I’ve got to make the music come up a little bit louder. But you were saying you try not to let the real news get in the way of your writing.

DS: Right.

HH: And I think that’s a very interesting insight into the struggle.

DS: Yes.

HH: Explain that to people.

DS: I wall off my part of the day where I’m involved in my world. And then I come out of that shell briefly, and I live in the real world. And then that’s really, it’s a wonderful thing to inhabit two places. But I really, I roll out of bed, like most writers, I think, I do a lot of writing in my sleep. Graham Greene, I learned a lot of lessons from him. And one of the things he did is always read what he wrote that day right before he went to bed. And then, you know, I just find that when I roll out of bed, I just grab a cup of coffee, and go down and start writing, because that’s always the most productive time, that first hour that you’re awake.

HH: And is that, do you set for yourself a discipline that every single day, or at least Monday through Friday, that’s what you do?

DS: Monk-like, and it is not Monday through Friday. I work seven days a week. I find it very, very difficult to take days off. It’s rather like an actor staying in character on a set, you know. If you come out, it’s just harder to get back in. I find taking even a single day, when I come back and start writing again, that it takes me a little longer to get back into it, so I try to write every day.

HH: Do you know where you’re going to end at the beginning of every novel?

DS: I haven’t the foggiest. Haven’t the foggiest. I know maybe about a third of it, and I don’t want to know anymore than that. I want to bring the characters and the story to life on the page, and then let the characters lead me by the hand to the finish line. And I’ve been working with Gabriel long enough to know that at a certain point, you’ve just got to put the story in his hands, and get out of the way.

HH: Now do you hear the conversation? Or do you write it first and then hear it?

DS: You know, I was, I was, it’s funny you should ask. That’s a great question. I sometimes feel, particularly when Gabriel is with his mentor, Ari Shamron, that I’m just a mere stenographer, and that these characters have so come to life in my head, they’re so part of our family, that you’re just really kind of writing down what they say. It’s not, when you really work on a novel, and you really get that magic, when you get into that clear air, it’s not that you’re making up a story, it’s just that you’re writing down a story that you already know, or you’re remembering a story. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it’s, that’s the point where I like to get to, where you’re just, it’s like the memory of the story is so imprinted in your subconscious that you’re just writing down something that you already know.

HH: You know, there are a couple of recurring places in your books – Shamron’s villa, the waiting room in the airport where Mossad people go to when they return.

DS: Right.

HH: And when you, do you see that when you’re writing? That’s a sort of extension of the question I said about do you hear it. Do you see them in those rooms? Do you have a vision?

DS: You bet. You bet. I mean, one of the things that I’m a stickler for, and is a term that we use called point of view, and that every scene has a point of view through the eyes of a character. And sometimes, I’ll go God’s eye and write in a more omniscient point of view. But I generally, in the formula of my novels, we’re really with Gabriel 75-80% of the time. And so I see things through his eyes. And because he’s an artist, he has a very unique vision, and I try to capture that vision. And so he’s very observant about certain kinds of things, and I try to use that to my advantage when I’m writing.

* * *

What do you think? Do you write the book, or do you write the characters and then the characters write the book?

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: character, Daniel Silva, dialogue, fiction, Plot, Writing

May 30, 2008 by kevinstilley

Girls Shouldn’t Just Wanna Have Fun

Parker & KevinGirls shouldn’t just wanna have fun, and neither should anyone else. Consider this story told by J.P. Moreland in The Lost Virtue Of Happiness which he co-authored with Klaus Issler;

When my daughter’s eight-grade team was being creamed in a soccer game, the coach said at halftime, “Girls, don’t worry about the score. The reason we play soccer is to have fun; so let’s try to have a blast during the second half and go home happy whatever the final result.” That coach reminds me of Cyndi Lauper’s song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” He was mindlessly parroting the cultural mantra that pleasurable satisfaction is the goal of life. The reasons my wife and I wanted our daughter to play soccer where to learn how to win and to lose, to cooperate with others, to sacrifice for a long-term goal, which requires delaying instant gratification, and — well, you get the picture. What was really sad was not simply the coach’s speech, but the fact than none of the parents so much as batted an eye at his counsel.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Blog, character, citizenship, Cub Scouts, Cyndi Lauper, Family, fitness, fun, goals, happiness, J. P. Moreland, training, Worldview

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