Category: Character Counts

  • Indifference, Moral Blindness, Rationalization

    “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” — Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American Founding Father, inventor and statesman (from his autobiography) “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in…

  • Ideology, Rigidity, Narrow Thinking

    “My Son, these maxims make a rule An lump them ay thegither: The Rigid Righteous is a fool, The Rigid Wise anither.” — Robert Burns, 18th-century Scottish poet “Ideology is just an escape from thought.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, 20th-century North American economist, statesman, author “The proper man understands equity, the small man profits.” —…

  • Human Nature & Human Folly

    “In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.” — Anton Chekhov, 19th-century Russian dramatist “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” — Anne Frank, victim of the mid-20th-century…

  • Hope, Faith, Idealism, Optimism, Attitude, Confidence

    “Optimism is the father that leads to achievement.” — Helen Keller, 20th-century American social activist, public speaker and author “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth…

  • Honesty, Truth

    “As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.” — Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), 19th-century American humorist “A promise made is a debt unpaid.” — Robert W. Service (in “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” 1907) “We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on…

  • Happiness

    “We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.” — Carlos Castaneda, 20th-century Latin American mystic and author “All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.”…

  • Good & Evil

    “Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as you ever can.” — John Wesley, 18th-century Anglican clergyman “All that is necessary for evil to…

  • The Future, Fate, Change, Security

    “No wind favors he who has no destined port.” — Michel de Montaigne, 16th-century French man of letters and essayist “We drive into the future using only our rear view mirror.” — (Herbert) Marshall McLuhan, 20th-century Canadian writer and educator “The future enters into us, in order to transform us, long before it happens.”— Rainer Maria…

  • Fairness, Justice, Peace

    “Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.” — Dennis Wholey, 20th/21st-century self-help author and journalist “It is reasonable that every one who asks justice should do justice.” — Thomas Jefferson, 18th-century American Founding…

  • Ethics & Morality

    “There’s a hole in the moral ozone and it’s getting bigger.” — Michael Josephson, 20th/21st- century American ethicist “Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” — G.K. Chesterton, 19th-century English essayist and poet “That which is beautiful is moral. That is all, nothing more.” — Gustave Flaubert, 19th-century French novelist “Morality is the…