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Quotes about character

276 quotes from 175 people

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Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Notes from Underground (1864), Part II: À Propos of the Wet Snow, Chapter IXIn context
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglass1817–1895Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845), Ch. 5In context
- Truth & Lies
The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.
Arthur Conan Doyle1859–1930The Sign of the Four (1890), Chapter IIIn context
- Emotion
- Thinking
What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us.
Henry van Dyke1852–1933Ships and Havens, ch. 2 (1898).
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
Character is higher than intellect… A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The American Scholar (1837), par. 27
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Representative Men (1850)
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Journal (November 8, 1838)
- Debate
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Inspiration
Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Freedom
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
- Wisdom
Hast thou lived all these years, and learned but now
That every man more loveth his own head
Than other men’s?
Euripides481–407 BCMedea (431 BC), Part 1, spoken by AttendantIn context
Most men become successful and famous, not through ambition, but through ability and character.
WFWilliam Feather1889–1981The Business of Life (1949)
- Success