Character Quotes

• "The heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, or the hand to execute."
  By: Junius (pseudonym, possibly of Sir Philip Francis), City Address and the King's Answer (letter XXXVII)
  Character Quotes
• "The most accomplished persons have usually some defect, some weakness in their characters, which diminishes the lustre of their brighter qualifications."
  By: Junius (pseudonym, possibly of Sir Philip Francis)
  Character Quotes
• "A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them,--defects which it is well not to correct."
  By: Joseph Joubert
  Character Quotes
• "Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend."
  By: Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature"), Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet (st. 2)
  Character Quotes
• "A very unclubable man."
  By: Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature"), Boswell's Life of Johnson (note)
  Character Quotes
• "If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our house let us count our spoons."
  By: Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature"), Boswell's Life of Johnson
  Character Quotes
• "Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified."
  By: Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature")
  Character Quotes
• "Where the vivacity of the intellect and the strength of the passions exceed the development of the moral faculties the character is likely to be embittered or corrupted by extremes, either of adversity or prosperity."
  By: Mrs. Anna Brownell Jameson
  Character Quotes
• "In our relations with the people around us, we forgive them more readily for what they do, which they can help, than for what they are, which they cannot help."
  By: Mrs. Anna Brownell Jameson
  Character Quotes
• "Conflict, which rouses up the best and highest powers in some characters, in others not only jars the whole being, but paralyzes the faculties."
  By: Mrs. Anna Brownell Jameson
  Character Quotes
• "He was worse than provincial--he was parochial."
  By: Henry James, Jr., Of Thoreau--A Critical Life of Hawthorne
  Character Quotes
• "A Soul of power, a well of lofty Thought A chastened Hope that ever points to Heaven."
  By: John Hunter (1), Sonnet--A Replication of Rhymes
  Character Quotes
• "Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us."
  By: Alexander Humboldt
  Character Quotes
• "Thou canst mould him into any shape like soft clay. [Lat., Argilla quidvis imitaberis uda.]"
  By: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Epistles (II, 2, 8)
  Character Quotes
• "Excellence when concealed, differs but little from buried worthlessness. [Lat., Paullum sepultae distat inertiae Celata virtus.]"
  By: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Carmina (IV, 9, 29)
  Character Quotes
• "If whole in life, and free from sin, Man needs no Moorish bow, nor dart Nor quiver, carrying death within By poison's art. [Lat., Integer vitae scelerisque purus Non eget Mauris incidis neque arcu Nec venernatis gravida sagittus Fusce pharetra.]"
  By: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Carmina (I, 22, 1), (Gladstone's translation)
  Character Quotes