Character Quotes

• "A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all,-- With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past,-- Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man."
  By: James Russell Lowell, Prometheus (l. 216)
  Character Quotes
• "It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested."
  By: James Russell Lowell, My Study Windows--Abraham Lincoln
  Character Quotes
• "His Nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't, As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont; So his best things are done in the flash of the moment."
  By: James Russell Lowell, Fable for Critics (l. 834)
  Character Quotes
• "Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts."
  By: James Russell Lowell, Columbus (l. 237)
  Character Quotes
• "All that hath been majestical In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, The angel heat of man."
  By: James Russell Lowell, An Incident in a Railroad Car (st. 10)
  Character Quotes
• "For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied, A nature sloping to the southern side; I thank her for it, though when clouds arise Such natures double-darken gloomy skies."
  By: James Russell Lowell, An Epistle to George William Curtis (postscript 1887, l. 53)
  Character Quotes
• "Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat."
  By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Poets
  Character Quotes
• "Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error."
  By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Courtship of Miles Standish (pt. IX, The Wedding Day)
  Character Quotes
• "So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good, So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure."
  By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. V, l. 319)
  Character Quotes
• "A tender heart; a will inflexible."
  By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus (pt. III, New England Tragedies, John Endicott, act III, sc 2)
  Character Quotes
• "The injury done to character is greater than can be estimated. [Lat., Famae ac fidei damna majora sunt quam quae aestimari possunt.]"
  By: Titus Livy, Annales (III, 72)
  Character Quotes
• "You may depend upon it that be is a good man whose intimate friends are all good."
  By: Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)
  Character Quotes
• "Joy and grief decide character. What exalts prosperity? what imbitters grief? what leaves us indifferent? what interests us? As the interest of man, so his God,--as his God, so he."
  By: Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)
  Character Quotes
• "Certain trifling flaws sit as disgracefully on a character of elegance as a ragged button on a court dress."
  By: Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)
  Character Quotes
• "Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable."
  By: Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)
  Character Quotes
• "As your enemies and your friends, so are you."
  By: Johann Kaspar Lavater (John Caspar Lavater)
  Character Quotes