The characteristics of the Choleric temperament

When the ego predominates, a choleric temperament results. Cholerics come across as people who must always have their own way. Their aggressiveness, everything concerned with their forcefulness of will, derives from their blood circulation.  

The characteristics of the Phlegmatic temperament

This temperament derives from the etheric or life body. The result is a sense of inner well being. The more human beings live in their etheric body, the more they are preoccupied with their own internal processes. They let external events run their course while their attention is directed inward.

The characteristics of the Sanguine temperament

In the sanguine the nervous system dominates, and thus the astral body dominates (because the astral body expresses itself physically in the nervous system). Sanguines surrender themselves in a certain sense to the constant and varied flow of images, sensations, and ideas, since in them the astral body and nervous system predominate. Only the circulation of the blood restrains the nervous system’s activity. That this is so becomes clear when we consider what happens when a person lacks blood or is anaemic, in other words, when the blood's restraining influence is absent. Mental images fluctuate wildly, often leading to illusions and hallucinations.

A touch of this is present in Sanguines. Sanguines are incapable of lingering over an impression. They cannot fix their attention on a particular image nor sustain their interest in an impression. Instead, they rush from experience to experience, from percept to percept.

The characteristics of the Melancholic temperament

In the melancholic the physical body is master over the others. Melancholics feel they are not master over their body, that they cannot bend it to their will. The physical body, which is intended to be an instrument of the higher members, is itself in control, and frustrates the others. Melancholics experience this as pain, as a feeling of despondency. Pain continually wells up within them because the physical body resists the etheric body's inner sense of well being, the astral body's liveliness, and the ego's purposeful striving.