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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:

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.

James Russell Lowell Abraham Lincoln (1864)

Everybody makes fun of virtue, which by now has, as its primary meaning, an affectation of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent.

Thomas Merton The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

It isn't right to be obedient only when things go well; it is much harder to be a good, obedient soldier when things go badly and times are hard. Obedience and faith at such time is a virtue.

Wilhelm Keitel

There are few things as nauseating as pure obedience.

Patrick Rothfuss The Name of the Wind (2007)

A deliberate rejection of duty prescribed by already recognized truth cannot but destroy, or at least impair most seriously, the clearness of our mental vision.

Henry Liddon Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford: Second Series (1887)

Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.

James Waddel Alexander Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Perfection is beyond our reach, but they who earnestly strive to become perfect, acquire excellences and virtues of which the multitude have no conception.

John Lancaster Spalding Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)

Persecution is a very easy form of virtue.

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge Reg. v. Ramsey (1883)

To act nobly, a noble heart is not enough. It needs help from a sharp mind.

Leon Kass Looking for an Honest Man (2009)

Duty often had undesirable consequences, but if it did not it would be self-indulgence and hedonism.

Malcolm Azania E-Force (2012)

A minority may do for a society what the conscience does for an individual.

John Howard Yoder The Priestly Kingdom (1984)

You have no right, for the purpose of justifying a libel, to inquire into a man's life and opinions.

Sir Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet Derby v. Ouseley (1856)

Religious instruction should aim chiefly to turn men’s aspirations and efforts to that perfection of the soul, which constitutes it a bright image of God.

William Ellery Channing Likeness to God (1828)

I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey.

Ayn Rand Anthem (1938)

Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?

Jesus

Gentlemen, we have a master; this young man does everything, can do everything and wants everything.

Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès

Every one is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.

Miguel de Cervantes

I look upon you as a gem of the old rock.

Thomas Browne Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658)

Culture is then properly described not as having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.

Matthew Arnold Culture and Anarchy (1869)

Place before thyself the ideal of perfection, not that of happiness, for by doing what makes thee wiser and better, thou shalt find the peace and joy in which happiness consists.

John Lancaster Spalding Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)

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