E-mail us . Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig. We are what we seem to be. You can work on it and try to make it better, but basically you have to take the bitter with the sweet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Character is an essential tendency.
It can be covered up, it can be messed with, it can be screwed around with, but it can't be ultimately changed. It's the structure of our bones, the blood that runs through our veins. If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits. Character is that which can do without success.