Character Quotes

He whines, he complains, he ducks out of the most obvious responsibility. He is vain, petty and maddening, but he doesn't ever quit.

~ Megan Whalen Turner

To measure the man, measure his heart.

~ Malcolm Forbes

Good wombs have borne bad sons.-- (Miranda, I:2)

~ William Shakespeare

The average personality reshapes frequently, every few years even our bodies undergo a complete overhaul - desirable or not, it is a natural thing that we should change. All right, here were two people who never would change. That is what Mildred Grossman had in common with Holly Golightly. They would never change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic.

~ Truman Capote

Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him.

~ Omar Nelson Bradley

Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.

~ Virginia Woolf

Character is plot, plot is character.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character.

~ Noah Webster

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

~ Hermann Hesse

You're thoughtful, Barbara, but you're not open. You're passionate, but you're hard. You're a good, decent, funny, wonderful woman, and I love you, but you're a pain in the ass.

~ Tracy Letts

Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.

~ Wallace Stegner

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other. It consists in deeds not words.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And the good that is in you must be spread to others… In this world so filled with problems, so constantly threatened by dark and evil challenges, you can and must rise above mediocrity, above indifference. You can become involved and speak with a strong voice for that which is right.

~ Gordon B. Hinckley

People adjust their behavior to fit the society they live in. They integrate because they have to. But what they are on the inside doesn't change.

~ Sandra Brown

Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.

~ Alan Armstrong

Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people's in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack.

~ Flannery O'connor

Daja doesn't exactly need to be tested on whether she's honorable or not. Doesn't she? Don't all of you? This is your first taste of the things which may come from your being powerful mages. People will offer you gold, status, even love. I want to know how you will react. If want to know if your teachers will release greedy, thoughtless monsters into the world.

~ Tamora Pierce

It's not what you do but that kind of job you do that makes the difference.

~ Ben Carson

Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear fluently in all of them. She understands the use of a slide rule but prefers doing calculations in her head. She does not hesitate to risk life and limb- mine as well as her own. No doubt she has other qualities as yet undiscovered. I hope not.

~ Lloyd Alexander

The most difficult challenge an honest man will ever face is having to choose between duty and love.One creates a man of honorable character―a life worth dying for.The other creates a vulnerable soul that madly yearns for either death or immortality.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Don't write about Man, write about a man.

~ E.b. White

Affliction is a good man's shining time.

~ Edward Young

A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera the Black Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path, for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.

~ Rudyard Kipling

The decent, strong person had to do decent, strong things like love unlovable people and keep peace even when it wasn't easy.

~ Mary Connealy

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.

~ Abigail Adams

You have a valid complaint, and I do recognize it ... but you are reading into things a little bit. Just the same, I will do my best to make horrible things happen to a bunch of white people before something else so graphic hits a minority character.

~ Robert Kirkman

I've discovered that in life, it doesn't matter how good of a person you are; it's human nature to be judged and to judge others by the blood they carry and the company they keep.

~ Mz. Robinson

If something bad smells in the basement, it will eventually make its way to the attic.

~ Anthony Liccione

Rascals are always sociable, and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others company.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succ

~ Stendhal

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that registered earthquakes ten thousand miles away.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

If you are well-mannered towards those whose views are similar to yours, you may be said to exhibit a fairly good character. But, if you behave properly wit those holding divergent views from you or who criticize you, then you deserve to be credited with having an excellent character. (p. 99)

~ Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Our imperfections make us unique as surely as our strengths.

~ Toni Sorenson

A thorough inspection of someone you believed to be loveable will send you back into your shell if all you saw in their life was all bullshit.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

We are masters of our characters and in turn, slaves of their outgrowth.

~ Mohammed Ali Bapir

Developing better people should be the number one goal for any coach when dealing with kids. In trying to develop better people, we are going to develop more and better pros.

~ Bobby Orr

If any man despises me, that is his problem. My only concern is not doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

~ Marcus Aurelius