character Quotes

“It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.”

“Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.”

“What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”

“There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.”

“Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

“I am who I am and I have the need to be.”

“No one is ever satisfied where he is.”

“When someone blushes, doesn’t that mean ‘yes’?”

“Good things come to those who find it and shove it in their mouth!”

“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.”

“In my experience, Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”

“Oftentimes. when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.”

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”

“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”

“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?” The brush continued to move. “Like it? Well I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

“The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred.”

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”

“If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.”

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.”

“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.”

“There are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.‘”

“In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s, we do not accept them easily enough.”

“The sincere wish to be good is half the battle.”

“There are many Beth’s in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”

“You are the gull, Jo, strong and wild, fond of the storm and the wind, flying far out to sea, and happy all alone.”

“Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I’ve a right to be hurt, I don’t intend to show it.”

“When we make little sacrifices we like to have them appreciated, at least.”

“What we know matters but who we are matters more.”

“We all have souls of different ages.”

“To be honest, I can’t imagine how anyone could say ‘I’m weak’ and then stay that way. If you know that about yourself, why not fight it, why not develop your character?”

“I’ve learned one thing: you only really get to know a person after a fight. Only then can you judge their true character!”

“Whoever’s calm and sensible is insane!”

“When there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.”

“It’s just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, as opposed to what we want.”

“Love, after all, always said more about those who felt it than it did about the ones they loved.”

“When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself. You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence.”

“Why don’t you just be yourself? … No one can help but admire your spirit.”

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.”

“You’ve got about as much charm as a dead slug.”

“She knew the years of isolation had altered her behavior until she was different from others, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been alone. Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.”

“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.”

Never explain what you do. It speaks for itself. You only muddle it by talking about it.

The city became for me the ideal of what I wanted to be as a grown-up. Friendly, but never gushing, cool but not frigid or distant, distinguished without the awful stiffness.

“No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”

“I am what you designed me to be. I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt.”

“I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”

“Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.”

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of it.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you.”

“If you think I’m one of those people who try to be funny at breakfast you’re wrong. I’m invariably ill-tempered in the early morning.”

“Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.”

“I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it remains.”

“If a man’s word isn’t any good, he’s no good himself.”

“It is good people who make good places.”

Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.

“Heidi was never unhappy, for wherever she was she found something to interest or amuse her.”

“You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re right. She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t talk her out of it.”

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

“All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.”

The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.

“The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.”

“Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.”

“The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.”

″‘People tend to overestimate my character,’ I say quietly. ‘They think that because I’m small, or a girl, or a Stiff, I can’t possibly be cruel. But they’re wrong.‘”

“I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest.”

“the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting-point for future power and triumph.”

“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define if for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

“How does going to one of those other planets help you? You’ll still be a parasite, [Wanda].”

’He pulled my curtain aside and looked across the street. “One’s character is set at any early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.” He was quiet for a minute, then dropped the curtain and said, “I hate to see you swim out so far you can’t swim back.” ’

“Oh for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!”

“The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.”

“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”

“What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?”

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

“My voice is changing already. It always happens around ‘other’ people, whether I’m at Williamson or not. I don’t talk like me or sound like me. I choose every word carefully and make sure I pronounce them well. I can never, ever let anyone think I’m ghetto.”

″If you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.″

“The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.”

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

“It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters. And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such things as a soul mate, because we don’t have genuine souls.”

“Character reigns preeminent in determining potential.”

“The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.”

“On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of these principles.”

“More about Howl? Sophie thought desperately. I have to blacken his name! Her mind was such a blank that for a second it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! ‘Well, he’s fickle, careless, selfish, and hysterical,’ she said. ‘Half the time I think he doesn’t care what happens to anyone as long as he’s all right—but then I find out how awfully kind he’s been to someone. Then I think he’s kind just when it suits him—only then I find out he undercharges poor people. I don’t know, Your Majesty. He’s a mess.‘”

″ When he smiled he showed a row of strong white teeth. ‘God never made a finer woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold,’ he said.”

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

“‘Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.‘”

“In the most general sense, talent is the sum of a person’s abilities—his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character, and drive. It also includes his or her ability to learn and grow.”

“Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?”

“If Grandpa Portman wasn’t honorable and good, I wasn’t sure anyone could be.”

“a woman who has adjusted to many things in life and overcome many more, her face is full of strength. She has, we can see, wit and faith of a kind that keep her eyes lit and full of interest and expectancy. She is, in a word, a beautiful woman. Her bearing is perhaps most like the noble bearing of the women of the Hereros of Southwest Africa - rather as if she imagines that as she walks she still bears a basket or a vessel upon her head.”

“My point is that there can be no exceptions allowed on the score of character, position, or probability. What we must now examine is the possibility of eliminating one or more persons on the facts.”

“I have never been one to flinch or crawfish when faced with an unpleasant task.”

“Asking for something is easy, being responsible for it is the part that develops character.”

“He was traveling (on the train that never stopped). His self, his mind, raced on and he felt he hadn’t stopped going wherever he was going because he hadn’t yet arrived.”

“The morality of my activities escapes me.”

“The character of the tribunes was, in every respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole machine of government.”

“He’s no right to take away my character. My character is the same to me as any lady’s.”

“Excuse the straight question, Higgins. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?”

“The true character of a person is not seen in their everyday routine or even in their greatest accolades; the true test of a person’s character is witnessing the immediate steps after one of their greatest mistakes.‘”

“Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.”

“Ivan Ilych was...a capable, cheerful, good-natured, and sociable man, though strict in the fulfillment of what he considered to be his duty: and he considered his duty to be what was so considered by those in authority.”

“Thus, neither having the clue to the other’s secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other’s character and moods without attempting to pry into each other’s history.”

“The warrior knows that peace does not come from control but from relinquishing control. Everything in life that you try to control that is outside your control will steal from you your peace. You must choose to take hold of what you can control and let go of what you cannot. You cannot control your circumstances, but you can control your character. You cannot control the actions of others, but you can control the choices you make. You cannot control the outcome, but you can control the process.”

“Once there was a certain man who was very clever, but it was his character to always see the negative points of his jobs. In such a way, one will be useless.”

“That the orator’s own character should look right is particularly important in political speaking: that the audience should be in the right frame of mind, in lawsuits.”

“There are three things which inspire confidence in the orator’s own character-the three, namely, that induce us to believe a thing apart from any proof of it: good sense, good moral character, and goodwill.”

“Those who are in earnest do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.”

“I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette Mason, née Cosway, Mount Calvary Convent, Spanish Town, Jamaica, 1839.”

“I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest.”

“The fall from my horse had fortunately left no evil results; on the contrary it had changed my whole character for the better. From a lazy young man about town, I had become active, energetic, temperate, and above all--oh, above all else--ambitious.”

“What is now important is the courage he displayed in support of his convictions.”

“And yet the fire through which Alexander Crummell went did not burn in vain. Slowly and more soberly he took up again his plan of life. More critically he studied the situation. Deep down below the slavery and servitude of the Negro people he saw their fatal weaknesses, which long years of mistreatment had emphasized. The dearth of strong moral character, of unbending righteousness, he felt, was their great shortcoming, and here he would begin.”

“All humans make mistakes. What determine a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It is how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.”

“Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.”

“A person whose desires and impulses are his own- are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture- is said to have character.”

“In the old tales, kindness is the purest form of heroism. Find the character who meets the world with a big heart and an open hand and you have found your hero or heroine.”

“You can often judge the character of a person by the way he treats his fellow men.”

“Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it – this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish.”

“…the best actors are the most boring people. A strong sense of self was detrimental, because an actor had to let the self disappear; he had to let himself be subsumed by a character. ‘If you want to be a personality, be a pop star.‘”

Lucas Swain is a likeable character who doesn’t have many friends and absolutely no girlfriends. He has wondered why his father left and begins to put the peices together when he becomes convinced an urn of ashes begins speaking to him.

Duborsarsky’s descriptions of the girls’ surroundings, as well as her subtle details about each one of their personalities, creates very vivid images of each character. However, the characters as a whole seem to fall a bit short, never being fully realized, as only Matilda seems to go through the greatest changes from beginning to end.

Raven does come across as the typical bad boy at the beginning, but there is definitely a lot more to his character when you see how he behaves around his brothers and his family in general.

″‘Why should I make you new feet? To enable you to escape again from home?’ ‘I promise you,’ said the puppet, sobbing, ‘that for the future I will be good.’ ‘All boys,’ replied Geppetto, ‘when they are bent upon obtaining something, say the same thing.’ ‘I promise you that I will go to school, and that I will study and earn a good character.‘”

“It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances.”

“The relationship between Jess and her grandfather. They were very close despite his crabbiness. It was nice that Jess was able to look beyond that. I thought the ending of this book was really good. Things really came together and made sense. However, I didn’t like the way Jess’ grandfather treated her father; that made me dislike the character of the grandfather a little bit.”

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.”

″‘What characterizes the human race more?‘, Karla once asked me, ‘cruelty, or the capacity to feel shame for it?‘”

“I’m lonelier and wiser now, and I know it isn’t cruelty or shame that characterizes the human race. It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are.”

“Your character is the most precious thing about you. Don’t let it degrade.”

“Light may be my one defining motive and the essence of my character, and my early years were simply flooded with it.”

“The tragedy of Nixon was that he had immense political talent and intelligence; if only he had also possessed the ability to look within and measure the darker sides to his character. It is the tragedy that confronts us all to the extent that we remain in deep denial.”

“Trust is equal parts character and competence... You can look at any leadership failure, and it’s always a failure of one or the other.”

“He had been chosen for the post by King Basil the bear because of his upright, trustworthy character, and he accepted because he couldn’t possibly have refused. He loved the rough, gruff, fatherly King.”

The novel itself is excellent. The character journey accompanied by the physical is a favourite. The confusion and disjoint with reality experienced by the characters is palpable.

“There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.”

″...that was the first time in my life I ever felt I could be snatched out of my character, my calling, my reputation, as if they could fall away like a dry husk.”

From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.”

“God give me the courage and strength to know who I really am, to act accordingly in my life, and to refrain from diverting my time, energy, and interest into my character defects.”

“In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.”

“What struck Tom’s youthful imagination was the desperate and lawless character of most of the stories. Was the guard hoaxing him? He couldn’t help hoping that they were true. It’s very odd how almost all English boys love danger. You can get ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or swim a stream, when there’s a chance of breaking their limbs or getting drowned, for one who’ll stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits or bowls.”

“There’s something reckless about her- it feels as though she might do anything. Unpredictable. Dangerous. And given this morning’s outing she’s clearly got issues with the police.”

“It’s so very like you, isn’t it? The elegant exterior, the cheap grubby reality inside.”

Mrs Mooney was a butcher’s daughter. She was a woman who was quite able to keep things to herself: a determined woman.

Jack Mooney, the Madam’s son, who was clerk to a commission agent in Fleet Street, had the reputation of being a hard case.

Little Chandler remembered (and the remembrance brought a slight flush of pride to his cheek) one of Ignatius Gallaher’s sayings when he was in a tight corner: “Half time now, boys,” he used to say light-heartedly. “Where’s my considering cap?” That was Ignatius Gallaher all out; and, damn it, you couldn’t but admire him for it.

There was something vulgar in his friend which he had not observed before. But perhaps it was only the result of living in London amid the bustle and competition of the Press.

This union exalted him, wore away the rough edges of his character, emotionalised his mental life.

She had a smile for everybody.

The first to appear was Major Rumbold, a tall, grey-haired, grey-moustached, silent man, wearing a Norfolk coat and grey flannel trousers, who lived on his retired pay and wrote natural history articles for the papers.

“Good God!” said Mark suddenly. There was an instinctive turning of heads towards him. “I beg your pardon, Miss Norris. Sorry, Betty.” Miss Norris smiled her forgiveness. She often wanted to say it herself, particularly at rehearsals.

“I will stay if I can be of any help.” “Please do. You see, there are women. It will be rather painful. If you would—” He hesitated, and gave Antony a timid little smile, pathetic in so big and self-reliant a man. “Just your moral support, you know. It would be something.”

Mrs. Calladine was quietly mistress of herself.

Cayley’s qualities, as they appeared to Bill, may have been chiefly negative; but even if this merit lay in the fact that he never exposed whatever weaknesses he may have had, this is an excellent quality in a fellow-guest (or, if you like, fellow-host) in a house where one is continually visiting. Mark’s weaknesses, on the other hand, were very plain to the eye, and Bill had seen a good deal of them.

I used to gloat over Mark, thinking how utterly he was mine to ruin as I pleased, financially, morally, whatever way would give me most satisfaction.

She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor.

“Well, you’d better question the girl,” said the station-master carelessly. “I dare say she’ll be able to explain—she’s got a tongue of her own, that’s certain.”

Women were bad enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sidewise glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. That was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental processes he thought that he “kind of liked her chatter.”

“She’s got too much to say,” thought Marilla, “but she might be trained out of that. And there’s nothing rude or slangy in what she does say. She’s ladylike. It’s likely her people were nice folks.”

“I reckon she ought to be punished a little. But don’t be too hard on her, Marilla. Recollect she hasn’t ever had anyone to teach her right.”

Avonlea little girls had already heard queer stories about Anne. Mrs. Lynde said she had an awful temper; Jerry Buote, the hired boy at Green Gables, said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers like a crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other behind their quarterlies.

“A good man’s prayers are golden recompense!”

Her sisters used to say that they rather liked to get Jo into a fury because she was such an angel afterward.

All were unconscious that this experience was a test of character, and when the first excitement was over, felt that they had done well and deserved praise. So they did, but their mistake was in ceasing to do well, and they learned this lesson through much anxiety and regret.

“Jo March, you are perverse enough to provoke a saint!”

Cast away at the very bottom of the table was the Professor, shouting answers to the questions of a very inquisitive, deaf old gentleman on one side, and talking philosophy with a Frenchman on the other. If Amy had been here, she’d have turned her back on him forever because, sad to relate, he had a great appetite, and shoveled in his dinner in a manner which would have horrified ‘her ladyship’. I didn’t mind, for I like ‘to see folks eat with a relish’, as Hannah says, and the poor man must have needed a deal of food after teaching idiots all day.

She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, ‘truth, reverence, and good will’, then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great.

“You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernal, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart one day, and then the rough burr will fall off.”

Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral storybook, she ought at this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in her pocket. But, you see, Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested.

Villefort was ambitious, and to attain this ambition Villefort would sacrifice everything, even his father.

He had by degrees assumed such authority over his companions that he was almost like a commander on board; and as his orders were always clear, distinct, and easy of execution, his comrades obeyed him with celerity and pleasure.