Quotes and Sayings about Temperament
"If you are a novelist of a certain type of temperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist, except he was a Realist."
- John Barth
(Related: God, Temperament, Want, World)
"I had now arrived at my seventeenth year, and had attained my full height, a fraction over six feet. I was well endowed with youthful energy, and was of an extremely sanguine temperament."
- Henry Bessemer
(Related: Energy, Feet, Now, Temperament)
"When a father, absent during the day, returns home at six, his children receive only his temperament, not his teaching."
- Robert Bly
(Related: Home, Father, Children, Day, Teaching, Temperament)
"It is the gift of seeing the life around them clearly and vividly, as something that is exciting in its own right. It is an innate gift, varying in intensity with the individual's temperament and environment."
- Bill Brandt
(Related: Life, Environment, Right, Temperament)
"The moment you say, 'Please, give me a reason for this', then you are being impossible and temperamental."
- Montserrat Caballe
(Related: Being, Reason)
"Some people, however long their experience or strong their intellect, are temperamentally incapable of reaching firm decisions."
- James Callaghan
(Related: Experience, People, Decisions, Intellect)
"The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Talent, Heart, Intellect, Temperament)
"Heart and head are the constituent parts of character; temperament has almost nothing to do with it, and, therefore, character is dependent upon education, and is susceptible of being corrected and improved."
- Giacomo Casanova
(Related: Education, Heart, Character, Being, Nothing, Temperament)
"With a painter's temperament, all that's needed are the means of expression sufficient to be intelligible to the wide public."
- Paul Cezanne
(Related: Expression, Public, Temperament)
"Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Disease, Temperament)
"The anger that Uncle Junior has comes from my background. My father was the son of an Italian immigrant, and I've seen the fire of the Italian temperament. It can be explosive sometimes in ways that are both funny and tragic."
- Dominic Chianese
(Related: Anger, Funny, Father, Son, Fire, Temperament)
"With the hugely talented women I've worked with or observed, it's not a question about temperament or ego; it's a question about getting it right. If they've got a reputation for being difficult it's usually because they just don't suffer fools."
- Glenn Close
(Related: Women, Being, Ego, Fools, Question, Reputation, Right, Temperament)
"I think the diva is kind of a cliche. My definition of a diva is somebody whose talent does not match what they're trying to play, so all this temperament comes out."
- Glenn Close
(Related: Talent, Play, Temperament, Trying)
"We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it with passion, if we want to be happy."
- Cyril Connolly
(Related: Illusion, Passion, Temperament, Want)
"Few artists can afford artistic temperament."
- Mason Cooley
(Related: Artists, Temperament)
"When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music."
- Denis Diderot
(Related: Age, Music, Poetry, Excellence, Goodbye, Old, Painting, Superstition, Temperament)
"Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon."
- Emile Durkheim
(Related: Act, Causes, Suicide, Temperament)
"There is no personal charm so great as the charm of a cheerful temperament."
- Henry Van Dyke
(Related: Charm, Temperament)
"Age does not depend upon years, but upon temperament and health. Some men are born old, and some never grow so."
- Tryon Edwards
(Related: Age, Men, Health, Old, Temperament, Years)
"I am conservative by temperament. I disapprove of criminal activity. I am very solidly and markedly on the side of authority. The truth is I would rather err on the side of too much authority than too little."
- James Ellroy
(Related: Truth, Authority, Conservative, Temperament)
"As a whole, the managers today are different in temperament. Most have very good communication skills and are more understanding of the umpire's job. That doesn't mean they are better managers. It just means that I perceive today's managers a bit differently."
- Jim Evans
(Related: Communication, Job, Managers, Temperament, Today, Umpire, Understanding)
"It is my fate and perhaps my temperament to sign agreements with fools."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Fate, Fools, Temperament)
"My co-workers expect me to be late and temperamental."
- Eva Gabor
"To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone you disagree with is not just a terrible creature but somebody with whom you disagree."
- Peter Gay
(Related: Liberal, Temperament)
"Whether we like it or not, men and women are not the same in nature, temperament, emotions and emotional responses."
- Paul Getty
(Related: Men, Women, Nature, Emotions, Temperament)
"No one connected intimately with a writer has any appreciation of his temperament, except to think him overdoing everything."
- Zane Grey
(Related: Appreciation, Temperament, Writer)
"When I did have a little bit of commercial success, it really didn't suit my temperament at all. I'm a terrible public person."
- Juliana Hatfield
(Related: Success, Public, Temperament)
"I like cats. I used to have a lot of cats, but I don't anymore, now I just have a dog. It does take a certain temperament to have a cat, as they do have certain personalities."
- Jennifer Love Hewitt
(Related: Cats, Now, Temperament)
"Every art expression is rooted fundamentally in the personality and temperament of the artist."
- Hans Hofmann
(Related: Art, Artist, Expression, Personality, Temperament)
"If they're not temperamental, I don't want them. It's in the nature of a great artist to be that way."
- Sol Hurok
(Related: Nature, Artist, Want)
"The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments."
- William James
(Related: History, Philosophy)
"You know, so I was a weird eccentric kid but I did believe in the power of the word and of the word being made flesh I suppose, which again I suppose came from my temperament as well as my upbringing."
- Thomas Keneally
(Related: Power, Being, Temperament, Word)
"I have a bad reputation for being temperamental."
- Ted Kotcheff
(Related: Being, Reputation)
"Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling."
- Madeleine L'Engle
(Related: Creativity, Destruction, Temperament, Wrestling)
"My temperament is not geared to that of a novelist."
- Philip Levine
(Related: Temperament)
"Temperamentally, Sam and I are very much alike. He's a lawyer, my father's a lawyer, and I always wanted to play one. On so many levels the role just felt right. I fell in love with it as I would a woman."
- Rob Lowe
(Related: Love, Father, Play, Right, Woman)
"Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand."
- Andre Maurois
(Related: Style, Temperament)
"The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not permitted to defend themselves."
- Alice Miller
(Related: Character, Children, Fact, Parents, Reason, Temperament)
"Music inflames temperament."
- Jim Morrison
(Related: Music, Temperament)
"Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow older; they merely know more."
- Hector Hugh Munro
(Related: Children, Temperament)
"Being good is just a matter of temperament in the end."
- Iris Murdoch
(Related: Being, End, Temperament)
"It has been argued that British girls are incapable of deep feeling or brilliant acting owing to their lack of temperament. This, I am positive, is not true."
- Ivor Novello
(Related: Positive, Acting, Deep, Feeling, Girls, Temperament)
"British girls are as temperamental as Americans."
- Ivor Novello
(Related: Americans, Girls)
"It is, from another angle, an attack on requiring proof in philosophy. And it's also the case, I guess, that my temperament is to like interesting, new, bold ideas, and to try and generate them."
- Robert Nozick
(Related: Ideas, Philosophy, Proof, Temperament)
"What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects."
- Walter Pater
(Related: Beauty, Power, Being, Intellect, Temperament)
"In or orchestra we have many nationalities, types, and temperaments."
- Artur Rodzinski
"Most films I've worked on have had large casts, but they've been wonderful people. I think the monkey in Pirates of the Caribbean is the most temperamental costar I've had. It would throw tantrums like you wouldn't believe."
- Geoffrey Rush
(Related: People)
"The principle of all successful effort is to try to do not what is absolutely the best, but what is easily within our power, and suited for our temperament and condition."
- John Ruskin
(Related: Power, Successful, Effort, Temperament)
"Don't forget that compared to a grownup person every baby is a genius. Think of the capacity to learn! The freshness, the temperament, the will of a baby a few months old!"
- May Sarton
(Related: Genius, Baby, Forget, Months, Temperament, Will)
"Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income."
- Logan P. Smith
(Related: Income, Temperament)
"American teachers have one indisputable advantage over foreign ones; they understand the American temperament and can judge its unevenness, its lights and its shadows."
- John Philip Sousa
(Related: American, Shadows, Teachers, Temperament)
"We were all so different, temperamentally from one another, it's impossible to believe that we were together for so long. The cast and crew. How could we be more different from one another? It's difficult to imagine. But something lovely came of it."
- Madeleine Stowe
"I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God."
- Igor Stravinsky
(Related: Life, Time, Talent, God, Living, Sense, Service, Temperament)
"Sam Wood, the director, made most of his money as a real estate agent; there was nothing of the temperamental artist about him."
- Gloria Swanson
(Related: Money, Artist, Nothing, Wood)
"It was an amazing performer. Very temperamental, it spent a lot of time in its trailer."
- Tilda Swinton
(Related: Time)
"Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda."
- Bennie Thompson
(Related: Wisdom, Successful, Court, Rights, Justice, Law, Temperament)
"As a West Side kid fooling around with boxing gloves, I had been, for some reason of temperament, more interested in dodging a blow than in striking one."
- Gene Tunney
(Related: Boxing, Reason, Temperament)
"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: Art, Work, Result, Temperament)
"To illustrate what I mean, an apt dancer may be in thorough unison with the others in that particular group, and at the same time reveal a difference in dancing temperament, rhythm or technique; she may phrase, accentuate or actually interpret differently."
- Florenz Ziegfeld
(Related: Time, Dancing, Difference, May, Temperament)