Character
One historian sums up Longworth: "Debonair and aristocratic, given to wearing spats and carrying a gold-headed cane, he was anything but a typical politician. He was perpetually cheerful, quick with a joke or witty retort, and unfailingly friendly. He seemed never to have a care and made hard decisions with such ease and detachment that some people wondered if anything at all really mattered to him."
One particular famous retort is told about Longworth. One day, while lounging in a chair at the Capitol, another member of the House ran his hand over Longworth's bald pate and commented, "Nice and smooth. Feels just like my wife's bottom." Longworth felt his own head and returned an answer: "Yes, so it does."
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Longworth
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“PLAIN SUPERFICIALITY is the character of a speech, in which any two points being taken, the speaker is found to lie wholly with regard to those two points.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)