“What a hero of fiction does paints him better than what he says, and vastly better than anything his creator may say of him.”

Maintaining that character is most powerfully revealed through action rather than explanation · Essay, Plot and Character, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Literature
• Writing

“The great novel deals with human action as well as with mental portraiture and analysis.”

Arguing that major fiction requires characters to act rather than merely to be described · Essay, Plot and Character, in Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Literature
• Writing

“When the critic reaches this exalted frame of mind his slight usefulness is gone.”

Arguing that criticism loses value once the critic begins to regard himself as infallible · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Character
• Criticism
• Humility

“To place a man in permanent absolute control of a certain number of pages, in which to express his opinions, is to place him in a position of great personal danger.”

Warning that unchecked authority to judge others can distort a critic's sense of his own importance · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Character
• Criticism
• Humility

“A man cannot keep a daily record of his comings and goings and the little items that make up the sum of his life, and not inadvertently betray himself at every turn.”

Suggesting that ordinary details recorded honestly reveal character more clearly than formal autobiography · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Character
• Identity
• Writing

“The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.”

A dry observation on how difficult it is to recognise one's own capacity to bore others · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Humour
• Wit

“The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.”

A sceptical observation about power and the capacity for tyranny within ordinary people · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Character
• Humanity
• Power

“To live continually with noble books, with high-erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy, teaches the soul good manners.”

Celebrating the moral and civilising influence of sustained reading · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Books
• Character
• Reading

“A man is known by the company his mind keeps.”

Suggesting that the ideas and books we inhabit help reveal and form our character · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Books
• Character
• Mind

“To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent—that is to triumph over old age.”

A compact philosophy of ageing without surrendering warmth, hope or reverence · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Age
• Character
• Hope

“For myself, I am no moralist: I consider that if you do what you want you must take what you get for it and that if you deny yourself things you will be better off than if you don’t.”

A compact statement of personal responsibility and self-restraint · The English Novel

• Character
• Morality
• Wisdom

“First impressions are the strongest of all, and once you have established in that way the character of one of your figures you will find it very hard to change it.”

A practical observation on characterisation and the lasting force of first impressions · The English Novel

• Character
• Imagination
• Writing

“I am astonished and delighted at once. I can hardly have deserved it: my military qualities are certainly not exceptional. I owe it chiefly to the captain's kindness.”

Original: Ich bin verwundert und beglückt zugleich. Habe es wohl kaum verdient: meine militärischen Qualitäten sind ja nicht exorbitant. Ich danke es wesentlich der Güte des Hauptmanns. — His modest and faintly ironic response to receiving the Iron Cross · War diary, 1 October 1914 (German)

• Character
• Humility
• War

“In the end one is too much a creature of nerves to possess the soldierly virtues which popular convention takes for granted and which perhaps really do exist.”

Original: Schließlich ist man doch zu sehr Nervenmensch um die Soldatentugenden zu besitzen, die der populären Convention als selbstverständlich gelten und die es vielleicht auch einmal da gibt. — A deeply personal rejection of conventional expectations of military heroism · Letter to Thea Sternheim from the front, early October 1914 (German)

• Character
• Convention
• War

“So, my son, in Labradors, as in life, ever prefer brilliance in performance to a humdrum steadiness, which, though highly respectable, is forever humdrum, humdrum.”

Extending a judgement about dogs into a philosophy of life · Book, Gun-Dogs (1931), Labrador Retriever chapter

• Character
• Truth

“Exactly so, my son; so never you put mere steadiness and style before nose, stamina and keenness to hunt and find.”

Urging substance and instinct over polished appearances · Book, Gun-Dogs (1931), Labrador Retriever chapter

• Character
• Truth