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Quotes about character

276 quotes from 175 people

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One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.
Jane Austen1775–1817Persuasion (1817), Chapter XIIIIn context
Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
Jane Austen1775–1817Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter VIIIn context
- Forgiveness
Man is not truly one, but truly two.
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the CaseIn context
- Good & Evil
Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Chapter IIn context
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
Charles Dickens1812–1870A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Book the First: Recalled to Life, Chapter IIIIn context
Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.
Charles Dickens1812–1870Great Expectations (1861), Chapter XXVIIIn context
There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.
Charles Dickens1812–1870Oliver Twist (1838), Chapter XIn context
Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.
Charles Dickens1812–1870Oliver Twist (1838), Chapter XXXVIIIn context
- Pride
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
Charles Dickens1812–1870David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 1In context
- Life & Death
Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another.
George Eliot1819–1880Middlemarch (1871–1872), Book II: Old and Young, Chapter XVIn context
- Pride
Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.
George Eliot1819–1880Middlemarch (1871–1872), Book IV: Three Love Problems, Chapter XLIIIn context
There is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.
George Eliot1819–1880Middlemarch (1871–1872), FinaleIn context
Delight is to him⁠—a far, far upward, and inward delight⁠—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
Herman Melville1819–1891Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter IXIn context
- Courage
Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.
Herman Melville1819–1891Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter LXVIIIIn context
- Advice