Character Quotes

• "It's the bad that's in the best of us Leaves the saint so like the rest of us! It's the good in the darkest-curst of us Redeems and saves the worst of us! It's the muddle of hope and madness; It's the tangle of good and badness; It's the lunacy linked with sanity Makes up, and mocks, humanity!"
  By: Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer, Humanity
  Character Quotes
• "Yet though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behavior; and to love her is a liberal education."
  By: Sir Richard Steele, Tatler (no. 49), referring to Lady Elizabeth Hastings
  Character Quotes
• "Worth, courage, honor, these indeed Your sustenance and birthright are."
  By: Edmund Clarence Stedman, Beyond the Portals (pt. 10)
  Character Quotes
• "The only equitable manner in my opinion, of judging the character of a man is to examine if there are personal calculations in his conduct; if there are not, we may blame his manner of judging, but we are not the less bound to esteem him."
  By: Madame de Stael (Baronne Anne Louise Germaine de Stael-Holstein)
  Character Quotes
• "The most careful reasoning characters are very often the most easily abashed."
  By: Madame de Stael (Baronne Anne Louise Germaine de Stael-Holstein)
  Character Quotes
• "A bold bad man!"
  By: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (bk. I, canto I, st. 37)
  Character Quotes
• "Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait."
  By: Horace Smith and James Smith, Rejected Addresses--The Theatre
  Character Quotes
• "He [Macaulay] is like a book in breeches."
  By: Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir (ch. IX)
  Character Quotes
• "Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam engine in trousers."
  By: Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir (ch. IX)
  Character Quotes
• "It is energy--the central element of which is will--that produces the miracles of enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is the main-spring of what is called force of character, and the sustaining power of all great action."
  By: Samuel Smiles, Character (ch. V)
  Character Quotes
• "There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king."
  By: Samuel Smiles
  Character Quotes
• "Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life."
  By: Samuel Smiles
  Character Quotes
• "The effect of character is always to command consideration. We sport and toy and laugh with men or women who have none, but we never confide in them."
  By: William Gilmore Simms
  Character Quotes
• "Gentlmen, we have a master; this young man does everything, can do everything and will do everything. [Fr., Messieurs, nous avons un maitre, ce jeune homme fait tout, peut tout, et veut tout.]"
  By: attributed to Count Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, referring to Bonaparte
  Character Quotes
• "I'm called away by particular business. But I leave my character behind me."
  By: Richard Brinsley Sheridan, School for Scandal (act II, sc. 2)
  Character Quotes
• "As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."
  By: Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Rivals (act III, st. 3)
  Character Quotes