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Character is Destiny: the Value of Personal Ethics in Everyday Life
An inescapable truth lies at the heart of this simple yet profound The quality of our lives is not determined by the happenstance of genetics or by the influence of environment; it is not measured in material possessions or in the trappings of youth; it is not dependent on personality or social acclaim. On the contrary, the intrinsic value of the lives we lead reflects the strength of a single our personal character. Character is Destiny, a sort of self-help guide for the soul, shows how we can lead richer lives simply by being better people.Russell W. Gough, a nationally prominent writer and speaker, describes the steps to personal growth–from examining our lives to taking responsibility for our actions, from discarding selfishness to embracing the greater good, from becoming a better role model for our loved ones to finding the courage to do the right thing naturally and consistently. By cultivating the habits of virtue, we will strengthen not only ourselves but, more important, our families and our world. This book shows how to overcome the most formidable obstacle to an ethical ourselves.Each and every day we are faced with scores of choices that, in subtle yet discernible ways, can either enrich or impoverish our personal character. The choices we make, and the manner in which we make them, illuminate the paths our lives will take. Character is Destiny can be our compass.
194 pages, Paperback
Published February 11, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 7, 2024
This is an amazing book! Jacob is reading for AO y9/10 term 2...but I always like to read it to him while he folds laundry or does the dishes for me. So thankful for books like this!...krb 11/30/21
Ellie read for ao y10...krb 7/7/24
Ellie read for ao y10...krb 7/7/24
March 24, 2026
This was a really amazing read. Before I read this I was like yeah yeah character like try to be a better person and I wanted to do that but I loved how he introduced methods or just ways of being on how to have a good character. This was a pretty eye opening book and I truly think everyone needs to read this. I think my favorite chapter was the last one just because it was a well done end to the book and I feel like I got a lot from it. If you are going to read this I suggest writing down your favorite quotes from it because I feel like you can just glance back at them and have a reset to a bad day, or just a little reminder to do your best character wise. Lili if ur reading this I am so excited for you to read this book next year for Ambleside O8!!
June 18, 2026
Read aloud with my high schoolers in our morning time, and it was a great follow up to the book Mindset. It was very simple for them to understand, even with great references from a variety of history sources (Aristotle, etc).
P. Xvi: It is impossible to improve our individual lives or our society without genuinely caring about and striving to improve personal character. You must genuinely care about your personal character, I must genuinely care about mine, and we must genuinely care about each other’s - as “friends.”
P. Xviii: What I would especially like to drive home is how our weaknesses of character – often leading us to do and say things that are regrettable, hurtful, and downright wrong – can be overcome and displaced with strong virtues of character, if we genuinely desire to improve ourselves and are willing to work hard at it.
p. 4: …ethics is inextricably intertwined with character, a fact that holds true for both the individual and society: one's ethics goes hand in hand with one's character.
p. 5: character - habit or customary behavior…"what we repeatedly do is destiny”
p. 8: Personality will always be secondary to character when it comes to the shape, quality, and ultimate direction of your life and especially when it comes to the all-important question of how good a person you really are.
p. 9: just because a person has a great deal of self-esteem is no guarantee at all that he or she is a good person.
p. 18: if I do not care or strive to be a better human being, then what does that say about the condition of my life, much less the condition of my personal character? What happens if our society as a whole ceases to care about the improvement of its collective soul? Isn’t improving ourselves ‘internally’ what, in largest measure, our lives are supposed to be about in the first place?
….
Have I become complacent about improving my personal character?
Am I so consumed in my daily life with other pursuits and goals that I end up devoting little or no time and thought to the betterment of my personal character?
How much time and energy do I spend trying to enhance my looks or my popularity or my bank account in comparison to the time and energy I spend trying to improve my personal character?
Have I perhaps developed an attitude of “oh well, I’m too set in my ways now,” or “I’m content with the way I am, faults and all—so I won’t bother trying to improve any more”?
Do I recognize or have I taken the time to recognize, how much room for improvement there actually is within my own personal character?
To what extent do I really care about taking personal ethics to heart and striving to become a better person?
To what extent am I willing to devote time, thought, and energy necessary to improve my personal character?
p. 21: Quote Baltasar Gracián: There are mirrors for the face, but the only mirror for the spirit is wise self-reflection.
p. 73: Specifically for our character-building purposes, the principle can be put this way: Our primary goal as moral beings is not just to say no to vice but to say yes to virtue—as a matter of heartfelt habit.
p. 74: Excellence is never achieved by primarily—much less exclusively—focusing on the elimination of what is wrong and bad. On the contrary, to achieve excellence, our focus, our aim, and our practice—all of our mental, emotional, and spiritual energies—must be directed primarily toward the pursuit of what is right and good.
—>goes on to talk about not just clearing weeds but planting flowers and has list of contrasting weeds/flowers on pg 78-79
P. 92 Aristotle’s virtue test can go a long way in helping us get a handle on weak areas within, and specific ways to improve, our personal character. Make no mistake, however; his test requires that we be completely honest with ourselves when looking in the mirror and asking about particular actions in our daily lives:
Did I know that this was the right and good thing to do?
Did I choose to do it of my own free will?
Did I do it for its own sake?
Did it flow naturally and consistently from my character?
Did I feel good about doing it?
P. 96: quote Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics: No one who desires to become good will become good unless he does good things. Yet most men do not do these; instead, they resort to merely talking and theorizing about them and think that by doing so they will become virtuous, thus behaving somewhat like patients who listen to their doctors attentively but do none of the things they are told to do. And just as these patients will not cure their body by behaving in this way, so those who merely talk and theorize about becoming good will not better their soul.
p. 141:Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.
p. 149: Consider: More than anything else, who and what I presently am-my personal character-as well as the actions presently flowing from my character are the result of (are a continuum of) the little and seemingly mundane acts and choices I have sown gradually and daily over the course of my life. Thus, in reality, my day-to-day acts and choices are anything but little and mundane-on the contrary, they determine my destiny.
…my actions and decisions, however seemingly great or small, represent achievements in my life. They are achievements in the sense that I have, each passing day of my life, sown or worked toward-for better or worse, consciously or not-the constitution of my present character and the actions flowing from my present character.
p. 155: The odds are great that you and I —and virtually all Americans—strongly agree on two points regarding this issue, given the numerous studies and surveys in recent years. First, we strongly agree that our society is suffering from a poverty of “personal ethics,” “personal character,” “ethical and moral values,” and "virtuous behavior.” However it’s described, we’re all clearly concerned about the same disturbing disregard for what is right and good. Second (and please keep thinking about being “utterly honest”), we also strongly agree about who is responsible for this ethical poverty: He is. She is They are. You are. But not ME. And that, my friend, is one of our greatest, if not most lethal, ethical problems: I’m blaming you, and you’re blaming me. We’re blaming them, and they’re blaming us. And the blame-throwing really is that bad.
…p. 156: Rather than being in the habit of looking in the moral mirror, as a culture-no, as individuals-we’re in the habit of blaming someone else for our ethical poverty.
p. 158: I have found who is responsible for our ethical poverty, and it is I.
p. 159: Taking responsibility has an important, twofold meaning. It doesn’t merely imply that I am a significant part of the problem. It also implies that I am a significant part of the solution to the problem.
P. Xvi: It is impossible to improve our individual lives or our society without genuinely caring about and striving to improve personal character. You must genuinely care about your personal character, I must genuinely care about mine, and we must genuinely care about each other’s - as “friends.”
P. Xviii: What I would especially like to drive home is how our weaknesses of character – often leading us to do and say things that are regrettable, hurtful, and downright wrong – can be overcome and displaced with strong virtues of character, if we genuinely desire to improve ourselves and are willing to work hard at it.
p. 4: …ethics is inextricably intertwined with character, a fact that holds true for both the individual and society: one's ethics goes hand in hand with one's character.
p. 5: character - habit or customary behavior…"what we repeatedly do is destiny”
p. 8: Personality will always be secondary to character when it comes to the shape, quality, and ultimate direction of your life and especially when it comes to the all-important question of how good a person you really are.
p. 9: just because a person has a great deal of self-esteem is no guarantee at all that he or she is a good person.
p. 18: if I do not care or strive to be a better human being, then what does that say about the condition of my life, much less the condition of my personal character? What happens if our society as a whole ceases to care about the improvement of its collective soul? Isn’t improving ourselves ‘internally’ what, in largest measure, our lives are supposed to be about in the first place?
….
Have I become complacent about improving my personal character?
Am I so consumed in my daily life with other pursuits and goals that I end up devoting little or no time and thought to the betterment of my personal character?
How much time and energy do I spend trying to enhance my looks or my popularity or my bank account in comparison to the time and energy I spend trying to improve my personal character?
Have I perhaps developed an attitude of “oh well, I’m too set in my ways now,” or “I’m content with the way I am, faults and all—so I won’t bother trying to improve any more”?
Do I recognize or have I taken the time to recognize, how much room for improvement there actually is within my own personal character?
To what extent do I really care about taking personal ethics to heart and striving to become a better person?
To what extent am I willing to devote time, thought, and energy necessary to improve my personal character?
p. 21: Quote Baltasar Gracián: There are mirrors for the face, but the only mirror for the spirit is wise self-reflection.
p. 73: Specifically for our character-building purposes, the principle can be put this way: Our primary goal as moral beings is not just to say no to vice but to say yes to virtue—as a matter of heartfelt habit.
p. 74: Excellence is never achieved by primarily—much less exclusively—focusing on the elimination of what is wrong and bad. On the contrary, to achieve excellence, our focus, our aim, and our practice—all of our mental, emotional, and spiritual energies—must be directed primarily toward the pursuit of what is right and good.
—>goes on to talk about not just clearing weeds but planting flowers and has list of contrasting weeds/flowers on pg 78-79
P. 92 Aristotle’s virtue test can go a long way in helping us get a handle on weak areas within, and specific ways to improve, our personal character. Make no mistake, however; his test requires that we be completely honest with ourselves when looking in the mirror and asking about particular actions in our daily lives:
Did I know that this was the right and good thing to do?
Did I choose to do it of my own free will?
Did I do it for its own sake?
Did it flow naturally and consistently from my character?
Did I feel good about doing it?
P. 96: quote Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics: No one who desires to become good will become good unless he does good things. Yet most men do not do these; instead, they resort to merely talking and theorizing about them and think that by doing so they will become virtuous, thus behaving somewhat like patients who listen to their doctors attentively but do none of the things they are told to do. And just as these patients will not cure their body by behaving in this way, so those who merely talk and theorize about becoming good will not better their soul.
p. 141:Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.
p. 149: Consider: More than anything else, who and what I presently am-my personal character-as well as the actions presently flowing from my character are the result of (are a continuum of) the little and seemingly mundane acts and choices I have sown gradually and daily over the course of my life. Thus, in reality, my day-to-day acts and choices are anything but little and mundane-on the contrary, they determine my destiny.
…my actions and decisions, however seemingly great or small, represent achievements in my life. They are achievements in the sense that I have, each passing day of my life, sown or worked toward-for better or worse, consciously or not-the constitution of my present character and the actions flowing from my present character.
p. 155: The odds are great that you and I —and virtually all Americans—strongly agree on two points regarding this issue, given the numerous studies and surveys in recent years. First, we strongly agree that our society is suffering from a poverty of “personal ethics,” “personal character,” “ethical and moral values,” and "virtuous behavior.” However it’s described, we’re all clearly concerned about the same disturbing disregard for what is right and good. Second (and please keep thinking about being “utterly honest”), we also strongly agree about who is responsible for this ethical poverty: He is. She is They are. You are. But not ME. And that, my friend, is one of our greatest, if not most lethal, ethical problems: I’m blaming you, and you’re blaming me. We’re blaming them, and they’re blaming us. And the blame-throwing really is that bad.
…p. 156: Rather than being in the habit of looking in the moral mirror, as a culture-no, as individuals-we’re in the habit of blaming someone else for our ethical poverty.
p. 158: I have found who is responsible for our ethical poverty, and it is I.
p. 159: Taking responsibility has an important, twofold meaning. It doesn’t merely imply that I am a significant part of the problem. It also implies that I am a significant part of the solution to the problem.
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