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.
Virtue is the mistress of all things. Virtue is the master of all things.
Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave than fool.
I have learned by experience that no man's character can be eventually injured but by his own acts.
The further you progress, the higher the ideal of perfection toward which you strive rises.
There is no man suddenly either excellently good or extremely evil.
You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched.
I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes.