Private Mode Characters

Famous quotes containing the words private, mode and/or characters:

    “... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one’s own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.”
    —Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)

    “I have no scheme about it,—no designs on men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?—and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably?”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.”
    —Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)