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.
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
A man never shows his own character so plainly as by his manner of portraying another's.
You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod.
We can never enter upon the path to virtue unless we have hope as our guide and companion.
A man's character is formed by the Odes, developed by the Rites and perfected by music.
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray.
The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.
Good at a fight, but better at a play;
Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.
Virtue will have greater claims
To love, than rank with vice combin'd.
Though the experience of perfection is feather-light it brands like fire.