Character Quotes
Anyone else on this page has about a third as many entries as Shakespeare. Next come Pope, Milton, James Russell Lowell and Goethe. The sentence worth reading in context is Emerson’s, from The American Scholar (1837): character is higher than intellect, and a great soul will be strong to live as well as strong to think.
Shaw, in Man and Superman (1903), is here for a remark about marriage and morality, which shows how loosely the page’s topic is applied.
Three entries are flagged. Two sayings credited to the Roman mime-writer Publilius Syrus, one about character deciding every man’s fortune and one about doing nothing at once both hastily and prudently, are disputed. A passage credited to Joseph Addison, about imperfection being what complains of the imperfect, is marked misattributed.
All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.
It behooves a prudent person to make trial of everything before arms.
Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers.
A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse.
Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
Every man has at times in his mind the Ideal of what he should be, but is not.