Quotes about Character

Spiritual formation is a matter of reworking all aspects of the self.

One has to feel strong revulsion toward the wrong feeling one now has or is likely to have and at the same time strong attraction to good feeling that one does not now feel.

Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change, and when we are right, make us easy to live with!

Heroism, generally, is totally out of place in the spiritual life, until we grow to the point at which it would never be thought of as heroism anyway.

We cannot behave "on the spot" as he did and taught if in the rest of our time we live as everybody else does.

What God gets out of our lives—and, indeed, what we get out of our lives—is simply the person we become.

Prayer is, above all, a means of forming character. It combines freedom and power with service and love.

God both develops and, for our good, tests our character by leaving us to decide. He calls us to responsible citizenship in his kingdom by saying—in effect or in reality—as often as possible, "My will for you in this case is that you to decide on your own".

Now just think of what the quality of life and character must be in a person who would routinely interrupt sacred rituals to pursue reconciliation with a fellow human being. What kind of thought life, what feeling tones and moods, what habits of body and mind, what kinds of deliberations and choices would you find in such a person? When you answer these questions, you will have a vision of the true "rightness beyond" that is at home in God's kingdom of power and love.

But this is an age for spiritual heroes—a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power.

Such planning should include identifying the things in your life that you believe trouble Jesus—impatience, overeating, lying, or whatever it may be for you.

He teaches us how to be in prayer what we are in life and how to be in life what we are in prayer.