proverbs on Personality

The pioneering work of Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has been popularized in recent years by the gamut of notable thinkers, including Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) and, in this cas...

“People say, “You must have been the class clown.” And I say, “No, I wasn’t. But I sat next to the class clown, and I studied him.”

The second lesson this group of new believers has shown us is that the postmodern path to faith is organic. Lostness, of course, looks different depending upon your perspective and personality. It is ...

The man behind the unlikely tradition of Christmas stockings is usually thought to have been Nikolaos of Myra. He was a Greek Christian who became bishop of Myra, a city of Asia Minor. Nikolaos, or Sa...

Happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. These couples tend to know each other intimately—they are well versed in each o...

Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility.

Context matters. According to the Terman Study, which followed one thousand study participants from childhood until their death, the people we surround ourselves with are who we become. We see those a...

There is not any thing, relating to men and characters, more surprising and unaccountable, than this partiality to themselves. . . . Hence it is that many men seem perfect strangers to their own chara...

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity. Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas. Especially strong thinking powers (...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Sharan Merriam and Carolyn Clark, in their fine study Lifelines , effectively show that life is fundamentally about two things—our work and our relationships. And maturity is found in having the c...

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

No physical appearance is worth not eating pasta for.

The actual word in the Greek—charaktér—originally was used in connection with tools designed for engraving. And character is indeed a tool that marks us—that in one sense cuts us, shapes us, and engra...

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Seco...

The author Oscar Wilde once remarked that by the age of forty everyone has the face they deserve. This is a truly profound, if painful, truth. But it really applies to the “within” expressed by the fa...

When the Bible uses the term heart , it means the causal core of your personhood. The heart is your directional system. The heart is your steering wheel. Your behavior isn’t caused by the situati...

Compassion is expressed in gentleness. When I think of persons I know who model for me the depths of spiritual life, I am struck by their gentleness. Their eyes communicate the residue of solitary bat...

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

Quod vitae sectabor iter. Translation: Who do I want to be? And: What path will I take?

When you take "personal" attacks personally, you unwittingly conspire in one of the common ways you can be taken out of action-you make yourself the issue. Attacks may be personal, understan...

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

A 2014 study by Wendy Wood found that approximately 40% of people’s daily activities are performed out of habit. According to Wood, “an important characteristic of a habit is that it’s automatic…We fi...

Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.

Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their wh...