A Quote by Norman Douglas

You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.

Norman Douglas

Quote Topics

Age Character Character Of A Man Construct Does Fails His Man Only Say Says

Quote Author

Norman Douglas
British - Writer
December 8, 1868 - February 7, 1952

A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only himself can damage that. His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity.

John Bartholomew Gough

We have passed the age of the demagogue, the man who has little to say and says it loud. We have come to the age of the mystagogue or don, the man who has nothing to say, but says it softly and impressively in an indistinct whisper.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.

George Lois

Public opinion contains all kinds of falsity and truth, but it takes a great man to find the truth in it. The great man of the age is the one who can put into words the will of his age, tell his age what its will is, and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and the essence of his age, he actualizes his age. The man who lacks sense enough to despise public opinion expressed in gossip will never do anything great.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

'My character wouldn't do that.' That was always my favorite thing people say: 'My character wouldn't do that.' I said, 'Well, it says right here in this script your character does that.'

Richard Jenkins

When you are writing a character, what the character says is obviously crucial. But what the character doesn't say is absolutely as important as his words.

Frederick Busch

Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can't construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history.

John Polkinghorne

A man goes to a fancy dress party dressed only in his Y-fronts. A woman comes up to him and says "What are you supposed to be?" The man says "A premature ejaculation." "What?" says the woman. The man explains "I've just come in my pants."

Tommy Cooper

No man fails who does his best.

Orison Swett Marden

We all have ambitions, but only the few achieve. A man thinks of a good thing and says: 'Now if I only had the money I'd put that through.' The word 'if' was a dent in his courage. With character fully established, his plan well thought out, he had only to go to those in command of capital and it would have been forthcoming.

Douglas Fairbanks

Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve his age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside.

Stanislaw Lem

Who isn't frustrated and does not prove it by his actions - if you want to say so? But through art the psychologically maimed may become the most distinguished man of his age. Take Freud for instance.

William Carlos Williams

When a scientist says something, his colleagues must ask themselves only whether it is true. When a politician says something, his colleagues must first of all ask, 'Why does he say it?

Leo Szilard

So long as a man attends to his business the public does not count his drinks. When he fails they notice if he takes even a glass of root beer.

Corra May Harris

A man with a talent does what is expected of him, makes his way, constructs, is an engineer, a composer, a builder of bridges. It's the natural order of things that he construct objects outside himself and his family. The woman who does so is aberrant. We have to expiate for this cursed talent someone handed out to us, by mistake, in the black mystery of genetics.