Character Quotes

The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.

It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.

Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong, and homely.

The citizen ... preserved the resolute bearing of one who was not to be frowned down or daunted, and who cared very little for any nobility but that of worth and manhood.

Thrift is care and scruple in the spending of one's means. It is not a virtue and it requires neither skill nor talent.

The wise man admires water, the kind man admires mountains. The wise man moves, the kind man rests. The wise man is happy, the kind man is firm.

My son, by all means desist from kicking the venerable and enlightened Vizier: for as a costly jewel retains its value even if hidden in a dung-hill, so old age and discretion are to be respected even in the vile persons of our subjects. Desist therefore, and tell us what you desire and propose.

All your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do not build your character, and attain mastery over your thoughts and actions.

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

If you are really great, you will let others discover this fact from your actions.

One must keep one's character. Earn a character first if you can, and if you can't, then assume one. From the code of morals I have been following and revising and revising for 72 years I remember one detail. All my life I have been honest - comparatively honest. I could never use money I had not made honestly - I could only lend it.

If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them -- you can't help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there's your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.

Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he ought.

Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they struggle hard to be such.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.

Have no friends not equal to yourself.

Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.

The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to appear on the least rumor of such a gathering, and the next day to disappear, and go into his hole like the seventeen-year locust, in an ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's best, yet never dressed.... He especially is the creature of the occasion. He empties both his pockets and his character into the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him.

Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art .

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

It is in their 'good' characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self- revelations.

Your success stops where your character stops. You can never rise above the limitations of your character.

Good people strengthen themselves ceaselessly

A man is known by the company he owns.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.

For I am nothing if not critical.

Silver is purified in fire and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

Character is doing what you don't want to do but know you should do.

Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.

Of course Mahatma Gandhi you might say did not have so much physical vigor but he certainly seemed to have extraordinary resistance, which perhaps is rather different from physical vigor.

Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day.

Poem by Howard A. Walter (Character) I would be true, for there are those who trust me; I would be pure, for there are those who care; I would be strong, for there are those who suffer; I would be brave, for there is much to dare. I would be friend of all--- the foe, the friendless; I would be giving, and forget the gift; I would be humble, for I know my weakness; I would look up, and laugh, and love, and lift.

In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended.

It was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject more psychological than gout, rum, and purser's stores.

A man should demand much from himself, but little from others. When you meet a man of worth, think how you may attain to his excellence. When you meet an unworthy one, then look within and examine yourself.

The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite.

A gentleman can see a question from all sides without bias.The small man is biased and can see a question only from one side.

When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that's what's inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.

Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above is character.

Your action expresses your priorities.

Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.

Be neither silly, nor cunning, but wise

It takes a good deal of character to judge a person by his future instead of his past

It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm that cannot be seduced.

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.

The gentleman is calm and at ease. The gentleman is dignified but not proud; the small man is proud but not dignified.

Hast thou virtue? acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.

The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions.

The wise are free from perplexities; the virtuous from anxiety; and the bold from fear.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.

Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler.

At the depths of that dusty soul there is nothing but abject surrender.

Just as a waterfall grows slower and more lightly suspended as it plunges down, so the great man of action tends to act with greater calmness than his tempestuous desires prior to the deed would lead one to expect.

Whining is just unbecoming.

Trust is congruence between what you say and what you do.