Who said character is how you treat

He is mild, calm, quiet, even temperate — not hasty in judgment, not exorbitant in ambition, not overbearing, not proud, not rapacious, not oppressive.

It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes. Class bespeaks an aristocracy unrelated to ancestors or money. Some extremely wealthy people have no class at all, while others who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it.

Class is real. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not attempt to look better by making others look worse. Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because he is comfortable with himself.

If you do, winning will take care of itself. The hard part is doing it. Norman Schwarzkopf One does evil enough when one does nothing good.

Just be good. To be good is different enough. I just watch what they do. Try to be better than yourself. Jackson Brown, Jr. My life is my message. From that moment, my life changed.

For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward.

Strecker, A man is about as big as the things that make him angry. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its ever so little scar…Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.

Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, and virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization. When we have the lantern of Diogenes we must also have his staff.

It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire. Auden Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.

Abraham Lincoln recognized an important difference between character and reputation. In the same way, reputation is not always an accurate reflection of character. Some people derive more benefit from their reputation than they deserve; others are better than their reputations. Still, reputation matters.

It determines how others think of us and treat us and whether we are held in high or low esteem. Ecclesiastes Reputation, reputation, reputation! Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live as not to be afraid to die.

Money, you may get again, and, if not, you may contrive to do without it; name once lost you cannot get again. It should not be the signal for a let-down, but rather, a reminder that the standards which won recognition can never again be lowered. From him who gives much — much is forever after expected. You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do. Speak the truth when you talk, keep a promise when you make it, when you are trusted with something fulfill your trust, avoid sexual immorality, lower your eyes, and restrain your hands from injustice.

Whenever he speaks, he tells a lie. Whenever he promises, he always breaks it his promise. If you trust him, he proves to be dishonest if you keep something as a trust with him, he will not return it.

But is this not all one single principle, only viewed from different sides? Michael Josephson Character development is the great, if not the sole, aim of education. Heraclitus wrote, Character is destiny. The success or failure of character formation determines the destiny of each of us.

It determines, too, the destiny of our nation. If each of us is to be fully human, then, we need to form strong characters. Normal people — as they grow, learn and are trained — develop better or worse dispositions and habits of conduct. Because we are born in ignorance of moral ideals, however, we must be instructed or trained if we are to achieve a good second nature. Edwin Delattre Character grows in the soil of experience with the fertilization of example, the moisture of ambition, and the sunshine of satisfaction.

Character cannot be purchased, bargained for, inherited, rented or imported from afar. It must be home-grown. Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. First things first. And planting the ideas of virtue, of good traits in the young, comes first. In the moral life, as in life itself, we take one step at a time.

Many thanks to Beth Pelkofsky who has conscientiously been working to determine a proper ascription for this adage. Her query inspired the formulation of this question and motivated this exploration. Verified on paper. Publishing Corporation, New York.

Accessed in The New Yorker archive October Accessed thoughts. Google Books full view link. Google Books preview. Accessed samueljohnson. Dave Hill: Thank you for visiting the QI website and leaving a very valuable comment.

I have created a new blog entry for the maxim of Paul Eldridge here:. I have also updated the entry above to include a short discussion and a pointer to the new blog entry. Comment update history: This comment was modified on August 21, after the new entry was added to the blog. Skip to content. Dear Quote Investigator : I am attempting to verify the following quotation because it will appear in a forthcoming book, but I have discovered multiple attributions: You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

As I searched further I found a similar quotation with additional attributions: The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good. Can you help determine the origin of this saying?

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order. The final one was this [ALAZ]: Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good. No citation was provided [BKJM]: You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

Miles In the s the maxim was sometimes credited to Goethe. He also examined the common ascription to the eminent lexicographer Samuel Johnson of the following version: The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. That their lives matter more. That our entire worth revolves around the size of our bank account, brains, or -for us women at least- something else that starts with a b.

There is one thing- and one thing alone- that determines the type of person you truly are: how you treat people. All people. We need to let go of this idea that one person is somehow better than another just because they make more money, went to school longer, dress better, have a smaller waist or a more viral Instagram account.

None of those things make you better than me or me better than you. Four years of Ds can still earn you a degree. Outer beauty fades. Waistlines expand.

Between the media and his or her fans, we hear that this person deserves respect, that he is important, someone worth listening to and admiring. Now, imagine that person without the money. Without the fame, the power, the fanbase. Would you want to know him? Be friends with him? Be associated with him in any way? Would you look at that person and still think that he is better than you? That his life has more value, somehow?

If you ask me, I think a big heart beats a big bank account or brains any day! Admitting that every last one of us has room for improvement is the first step to becoming a better person.