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.
They've found fault with me enough, in all conscience, for putting violet shadows on bodies.
Everard sighed, switched off his conscience, and began lying.
I was not going to go to bed forever with his unwarranted death on my conscience.
In vain we plant, we build, our stores increase,
If conscience roots up all our inward peace.
I take with me the conscience of defeat as a victory banner.
I die with a clear conscience, I die fighting, not like a coward.
I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended for another man.