Character Quotes

He'd learned pretty early that the illusioned virtuous creatures were no more than that— illusions. Innocence was a community that was used up and consumed fairly quickly. More often than not, innocence was just ignorance, and the true character revealed itself before long— twisted and greedy like the rest.

~ Camille Oster

May any praise of your character come from others instead of yourself.

~ Joyce Rachelle

It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do.

~ Abhijit Naskar

If not as a true human, let me tell you as a Biologist, color of the skin does not define an individual’s intelligence – it does not define an individual’s ambitions - it does not define an individual’s dreams – and above all, it does not define an individual’s character.

~ Abhijit Naskar

In the biological sense, race does not exist.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Every person is the master of his or her own destiny. What we think about alters our character. Our character organizes our personality, and our personality scripts how successfully we interact with other people and respond to a changing environment.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

...I am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become universal law.

~ Immanuel Kant

To you character is a psychosis. Integrity is a complex.

~ John Kennedy Toole

Entrepreneurship does not build character, it reveals character.

~ Jeffrey Fry

There was a touch of prairie about the fellow.--hans vollmanYes.--roger bevins iiiLike stepping into a summer barn late at night.--hans vollmanOr a musty plains office, where some bright candle still burns.--roger bevins iiiVast. Windswept. New. Sad.--hans vollmanSpacious. Curious. Doom-minded. Ambitious.--roger bevins iiiBack slightly out.--hans vollmanRight boot chafing.--roger bevins iii

~ George Saunders

Never allow anyone to take you out of character, some people know which buttons to press. (Zip it instead)

~ Charmaine J Forde

The best way to determine a person’s character is to judge them when their world is falling apart.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Different narrative forms naturally lend themselves to different aspects of existence. The novel is ideal for presenting the inner lives of its characters, the play is ideal for showing people in a room talking and movies are ideal for showing large metal objects hurtling through the air.

~ Todd Alcott

If lots of men around you are growing a beard just because of political or ideological reasons, you refuse this, and if you have a beard, shave it off! Leave your herd to find yourself! Find your own style, not the style your ideology or your party is dictating on you! Remember, you build a sound character mostly through refusing, through saying no, through staying different!

~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

No such thing as a temptation. A temptation is a desire, a lust like any other - but one that we regret afterwards + wish undone (or that we know beforehand we will regret after). So it`s no excuse to say, ``I didn`t mean to do it. I was tempted + I couldn`t resist.`` All one can honestly say is, ``I did it. I`m sorry I did it.``- Reborn

~ Susan Sontag

I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone's life when character is fixed forever.

~ Donna Tartt

In the formative present, you are becoming who you will be in the future.

~ Sarah Lynn Phillips

Your moral foundation and character currently depend on what you hear.

~ Sunday Adelaja

What a wise person teaches is the smallest part of what they give. The totality of their life, of the way they go about it in the smallest details, is what gets transmitted.

~ David Brooks

Only through delayed gratification could you be able to come up with other virtues, character, trait that will really qualify you to call yourself a human being.

~ Sunday Adelaja

Character of any person is the aggregate of his or her conscientious tendencies - the sum total of the knacks of the civilized part of the mind.

~ Abhijit Naskar

The measure of a man consists less in his present perfection than in his willingness to be perfected. A man will be remembered most, not for his accomplishments, but for his character.

~ James Castleton

I've noticed...that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means.

~ Louis L'amour

People with character are capable of long obedience in the same direction, of staying attached to people and causes and callings through thick and thin. People with character also have scope. They are not infinitely flexible, free-floating, and solitary. They are anchored by permanent attachments to important things. In the realm of the intellect, they have a set of permanent convictions about fundamental truths. In the realm of emotion, they are enmeshed in a web of unconditional loves. In the realm of action, they have a permanent commitment to tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime.

~ David Brooks

But the Holy Spirit is not in a hurry. Character is the produce of a lifetime.

~ John R.w. Stott

...your antagonist is a hero in their own mind... p.192

~ Jeff Vandermeer

Agency in fiction has to exist in the context of the worldview. Otherwise agency is not just meaningless or unconvincing, it is often laughable. Unfortunately, agency is often thoughtlessly given to characters who would not have it in reality. p.189

~ Jeff Vandermeer

Think about how backstory fits the tale you're trying to tell... p.195

~ Jeff Vandermeer

The Holy Spirit is not in a hurry. Character is the produce of a lifetime.

~ John Stott

No matter how strong you are, you don’t just fight any fight at all! When you fight a wrong fight, you die a wrong death!

~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Danglars was one of those men born with a pen behind the ear, and an inkstand in place of a heart. Everything with him was multiplication or subtraction. The life of a man was to him of far less value than a numeral, especially when, by taking it away, he could increase the sum total of his own desires. He went to bed at his usual hour, and slept in peace.

~ Alexandre Dumas

We reflect God's character the most when we give freely of ourselves with no strings attached, no secret motives, no hidden agenda.

~ Craig Groeschel

The virtues of your character is more important the public opinion.

~ Sunday Adelaja

We can only be used by God after we allow Him to show us the deep, hidden areas of our own character.

~ Oswald Chambers

Skills can be trained, character is inbred.

~ Jeffrey Fry

...The happy Warrior... is he... who, doomed to go in company with pain, and fear, and bloodshed, miserable train turns his necessity to glorious gain; in face of these doth exercise a power which is our human nature's highest dower: controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves of their bad influence, and their good receives: by objects, which might force the soul to abate her feeling, rendered more compassionate; is placable— because occasions rise so often that demand such sacrifice; more skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, as tempted more; more able to endure, as more exposed to suffering and distress; thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

~ William Wordsworth

There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author’s back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face.

~ Karen Joy Fowler

Being a good loser helps build character, provides valuable lessons, and helps you become mentally prepared for your next challenge.

~ Frank Sonnenberg

If you’re not proud of what you do, you’re not done.

~ Frank Sonnenberg

Character is never built in a classroom, it is developed through the circumstances of life.

~ Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha