This document discusses the importance of character through quotes and passages. It begins by defining character as something that secures respect through heart power rather than just admiration through brain power alone. It then discusses how duty sustains people of strong character even without money, property or learning. The document also discusses how home is the most important school for developing character through training in manners, mind and heart. It provides examples of courageous figures like Socrates, Bruno and Malala Yousafzai who stood up for their principles despite facing opposition.

1. THE CHARACTER
By
Samuel Smiles

2. INFLUENCE
OF
CHARACTER

3. “The prosperity of a country depends, not
on the abundance of its revenues, nor the
strength of its fortifications, nor on the
beauty of public buildings; but it consists in
the number of cultivated citizens, in its
men of education, enlightenment, and
character; here are to be found its true
interest, its chief strength, its real power.”
-Martin Luther

4. “Genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the
product of brain-power, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in
life. Men of genius stand to society in the relation of its intellect, as men of character of its
conscience; and while the former are admired, the latter are followed.”

5. “Duty is sustaining power to men of the very highest standard of character. They may not have either money, or
property, or learning, or power; and yet they may be strong in heart and rich in spirit—honest, truthful, dutiful. And
whoever strives to do his duty faithfully is fulfilling the purpose for which he was created, and building up in himself the
principles of a manly character. There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in
the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.”
Mutyala Raju
Revu, IAS-2006
Topper

6. The most beautiful thing about a person isn't looks, looks will
fade and can be deceiving but true beauty is found in the heart
and soul.

7. HOME POWER
“So build we up the being
that we are, thus deeply
drinking in the soul of things,
we shall be wise perforce”
-William
Wordsworth

8. • Home is the and most important school of character. It is there
human being receives his best moral training, or his worst; for it
is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which
endure through manhood, and cease only with life
• It is common saying that
“Manners makes man;” and there is a second that,
“Mind makes man ”but true than either is third that,
“Home makes man.”
• Home training includes not only manners and mind but
character
• It is mainly in the home that heart is opened, that habits
formed, the intellect is awakened, and character moulded for
good or for evil.

9. COURAGE
“That which we are, we are, One equal temper of
heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but
strong in will to strive, to
seek, to find and not to yield.”
-TENNYSON

11. “Every step of progress of history of our race has
been made in race has been made in the face of
opposition and difficulty and been achieved and
secured by men of intrepidity and valour-by
leaders in the van to the great discoverers, great
patriots, a great workers in all walks of life”

12. “The courage that displays itself in silent effort and
endeavor-that dares to endure all and suffer all for truth
and duty-is more truly heroic than the achievement of
physical valour, which are rewarded by honors and titles
sometimes stepped in blood”
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai is a
Pakistani activist for female
education and the
youngest-ever Nobel Prize
laureate

13. Socrates was condemned to
drink the hemlock, because his
lofty teachings ran counter to
prejudices and party-spirit of his
age.
He had moral courage to brave
not only the tyranny of judges
who condemned him, but the
mob who could not understand
him.
His last words to his judges
being,
“It is now time that depart-I to
die, you to live ; but which has
better destiny is unknown to all
except to god”

14. Bruno was burnt alive, because of his exposure of
the fashionable but false philosophy of his time
when judges of the inquisition condemned him, to
die, Bruno said proudly:
“you are more afraid to
pronounce my sentence than I
am to receive it ”

15. “These are some of great men
and great thinkers have been
persecuted in the name of
religion and politics!”
D K RAVI IAS