"Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it"
About this Quote
Lubbock’s line lands like a Victorian sermon shaved down to its sharpest blade: character isn’t fate, inheritance, or the soft excuse of “that’s just how I am.” It’s chosen. Coming from a statesman in an era obsessed with moral improvement, self-help, and social order, the intent is both empowering and disciplinary. He isn’t merely offering comfort to the individual; he’s reinforcing a civic ethic in which personal virtue is the bedrock of public life.
The subtext is a tidy rebuttal to the period’s competing determinisms. Class hierarchy told you your station defined you; early scientific thinking and social Darwinist moods tempted people to treat behavior as biology. Lubbock pushes back with a liberal, reformist faith in self-fashioning: you can author yourself, and society should expect you to try. It’s motivational, but it also carries a quiet threat. If character is chosen, then failure is, at least partly, culpable. The line makes responsibility feel natural, almost inevitable.
Rhetorically, it works by narrowing the distance between identity and action. “Will be” points to the future, making character a project rather than a possession. “You yourself” doubles down on agency, stripping away alibis. That insistence flatters the reader’s autonomy while recruiting it for moral labor.
In a political context, the message reads as a tool of governance: cultivate citizens who police themselves. Lubbock’s optimism about choice is real, but it’s also strategically useful in a society trying to square freedom with order.
The subtext is a tidy rebuttal to the period’s competing determinisms. Class hierarchy told you your station defined you; early scientific thinking and social Darwinist moods tempted people to treat behavior as biology. Lubbock pushes back with a liberal, reformist faith in self-fashioning: you can author yourself, and society should expect you to try. It’s motivational, but it also carries a quiet threat. If character is chosen, then failure is, at least partly, culpable. The line makes responsibility feel natural, almost inevitable.
Rhetorically, it works by narrowing the distance between identity and action. “Will be” points to the future, making character a project rather than a possession. “You yourself” doubles down on agency, stripping away alibis. That insistence flatters the reader’s autonomy while recruiting it for moral labor.
In a political context, the message reads as a tool of governance: cultivate citizens who police themselves. Lubbock’s optimism about choice is real, but it’s also strategically useful in a society trying to square freedom with order.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
|---|
More Quotes by John
Add to List
