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Quotes about character

276 quotes from 175 people

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Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.
Tacitus55–120
The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.
Nassim Nicholas Talebborn 1960The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 94
‘Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832), Stanza 7
- Virtue
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Canto IIn context
- Change
He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob.
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863The Book of Snobs (1848), Ch. 2: “The Snob Royal”
Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863Vanity Fair (1848), Chapter XXXVIn context
- Leadership
Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right.
Hunter S. Thompson1937–2005The Rum Diary (1998)
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), Wednesday
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Walden (1854), ConclusionIn context
What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself.
Eckhart Tolleborn 1948A New Earth (2005)
He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so.
Anthony Trollope1815–1882The Warden (1855), Ch. 3
I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.
Mark Twain1835–1910“Answers to Correspondents”, The Californian, 17 June 1865. Anthologized in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867)
To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
Mark Twain1835–1910The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Chapter XXIIIn context
I am not what you call a civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating.
Jules Verne1828–1905Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), Part One, Chapter XIn context
- Freedom