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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.

Random quote on Character

Most quoted on character:

Do to-day's duty, fight to-day's temptation; and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.

Charles Kingsley

The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.

Emily Dickinson

Ascend, I follow thee, safe guide, the path
Thou lead'st me, and to the hand of heav'n submit.

John Milton

Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?

Plato

To those who know thee not, no words can paint!
And those who know thee, know all words are faint!

Hannah More

This is the secret of Christ's kingship— "He became obedient — wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him." And this is the secret of all obedience and all command. Obedience to a law above you subjugates minds to you who never would have yielded to mere will.

Frederick William Robertson Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Submission to duty and God gives the highest energy. He, who has done the greatest work on earth, said that He came down from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him, Whoever allies himself with God is armed with all the forces of the invisible world.

James Freeman Clarke Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Man can have strength of character only as he is capable of controlling his faculties; of choosing a rational end; and, in its pursuit, of holding fast to his integrity against al! the might of external nature.

Mark Hopkins Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

That man is prudent who neither hopes nor fears anything from the uncertain events of the future.

Anatole France

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean ... it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.

Aristotle

The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

David

What then remains, but well our power to use,
And keep good-humor still whate'er we lose?
And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail,
When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock (1712)

Thou art most rich, being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.

William Shakespeare King Lear (1608)

O do not slander him, for he is kind.
Right; as snow in harvest.

William Shakespeare Richard III (1591)

A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.

Lord Byron

The Ten Commandments have lost their validity. Conscience is a Jewish invention, it is a blemish like circumcision.

Adolf Hitler

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

Rudyard Kipling The Ballad of East and West (1889)

But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover.

William Wordsworth Character of the Happy Warrior (1806)

In men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still.
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot
I hesitate to draw a line
Between the two, where God has not.

Joaquin Miller Songs of the Sierras (1871)

Not once or twice in our rough island story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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