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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:

When interest is at variance with conscience, any distinction to make them friends will serve the hollow-hearted.

Henry Home, Lord Kames Treasury of Thought (1881)

Nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience.

Plautus

A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.

Sydney Smith Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

It is, civilly, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal rights.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1859)

The size of the Federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.

Ronald Reagan

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

Mahatma Gandhi

I think you can leave the arts, superior or inferior, to the conscience of mankind.

William Butler Yeats

On peut aimer que le sens du mot “art” soit tenter de donner conscience à des hommes de la grandeur qu’ils ignorent en eux.

André Malraux Préface du Temps du mépris (1935)

The disease of an evil conscience is beyond the practice of all the physicians of all the countries in the world.

William Ewart Gladstone

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.

Thomas De Quincey Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822)

A son is not a judge of his father, but the conscience of the father is in his son.

Simon Soloveychik Pedagogika dlya vseh (Parenting For Everyone) (1977)

What a man calls his "conscience" is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction after too much wine or love.

Helen Rowland A Guide to Men (1922)

Amidst the confusion of the times, the conflicts of conscience, and the turmoil of daily living, an abiding faith becomes an anchor to our lives.

Thomas S. Monson

In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives.

Felix Frankfurter

A good man with a good conscience doesn’t walk so fast.

Georg Büchner Woyzeck (1879)

The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

My favorite activity is conscience dreaming.

Jared Lee Loughner

The highest standard for each individual is that which his conscience tells him is best.

Lawrence A. Appley Lawrence A. Appley (1963)

What happened to these children remains one of the biggest stains on our country’s conscience.

Priti Patel

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