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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:

You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.

Giacomo Casanova Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

Anarchism serves unflinchingly as a philosophy of freedom, as the nagging conscience that people and their communities can always be better.

Cindy Milstein Anarchism and Its Aspirations (2010)

There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.

Polybius

People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.

Mary McCarthy On the Contrary: Articles of Belief 1946–1961 (1961)

I cannot approve of monarchs who want to rule over the conscience of the people, and take away their freedom of choice and religion.

William the Silent

I am the conscience of the 21st Century.

Martin Firrell

It is only when our consciences become tangled that the truth begins to hurt.

Ivan Krylov The Fables (1883)

Our commonest man, emulating his superiors, forges ahead with a brick on the safety valve of his conscience.

Philip Wylie Generation of Vipers (1942)

It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct.

Adam Smith The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

From all evil against which the law bars you, you should be barred, at an infinite distance, by honour, by conscience, and nobility.

Anthony Trollope The Duke's Children (1879)

The truth is, the generality of mankind stand in awe of public opinion, while conscience is feared only by the few.

Pliny the Younger

By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte The Vocation of Man (1800)

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.

Jeremy Collier Treasury of Thought (1881)

The avant-garde and the beatniks share in the function of entertaining without endangering the good conscience of the men of good will.

Herbert Marcuse One-Dimensional Man (1964)

It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience.

James Fenimore Cooper The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

Conscience in people is nothing other than the voice of the omnipresent God walking in the hearts of men.

John of Kronstadt

Nothing so wretched as a guilty conscience.

Plautus

A qualified man with vision, unmoved by daily selfish interests, will be led to right decisions by his conscience.

Haile Selassie

The governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness; that of Hebraism, strictness of conscience.

Matthew Arnold Culture and Anarchy (1869)

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