Character Quotes

• "Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people. [Fr., Les hommes, fripons en detail, sont en gros de tres-honnetes gens.]"
  By: Charles de Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat), De l'Esprit (XXV, c. 2)
  Character Quotes
• "Her virtue and the conscience of her worth, That would be wooed, and not unsought be won."
  By: John Milton, Paradise Lost (bk. VIII, l. 502)
  Character Quotes
• "Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve."
  By: John Milton, Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 323)
  Character Quotes
• "For contemplation he and valor formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace."
  By: John Milton, Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 297)
  Character Quotes
• "Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall."
  By: John Milton, Paradise Lost (bk. III, l. 99)
  Character Quotes
• "Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved."
  By: John Milton, Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 185)
  Character Quotes
• "Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles."
  By: John Milton, L'Allegro (l. 27)
  Character Quotes
• "Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear Does arbitrate the event, my nature is That I incline to hope rather than fear, And gladly banish squint suspicion."
  By: John Milton, Comus (l. 410)
  Character Quotes
• "In men whom men condemn as ill I find so much of goodness still, In men whom men pronounce divine I find so much of sin and blot I do not dare to draw a line Between the two, where God has not."
  By: Joaquin Miller (pseudonym of Cincinnatus Hiner Miller), Byron (st. 1)
  Character Quotes
• "Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech, His breath like caller air, His very foot has music in 't, As he comes up the stair."
  By: William Julius Mickle, Ballad of Cumnor Hall--Mariner's Wife
  Character Quotes
• "Ordinary people regard a man of a certain force and inflexibility of character as they do a lion. They look at him with a sort of wonder--perhaps they admire; but they will, on no account, house with him. The lap dog, who wags his tail and licks the hand and cringes at the nod of every stranger, is a much more acceptable companion to them."
  By: Merkel
  Character Quotes
• "He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man."
  By: Mencius
  Character Quotes
• "Hereafter he will make me know, And I shall surely find. He was too wise to err, and O, Too good to be unkind."
  By: Samuel Medley, Hymn
  Character Quotes
• "And, but herself, admits no parallel."
  By: Philip Massinger, Duke of Milan (act IV, sc. 3)
  Character Quotes
• "In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow; Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, That there's no living with thee, or without thee."
  By: Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis), Epigrams (bk. XII, ep. 47), (translation by Addison, "Spectator" No. 68)
  Character Quotes
• "In other respects the best fellow in the world. [Fr., Au demeurant, le meilleur fils du monde.]"
  By: Clement Marot, Letter to Francis I
  Character Quotes