"Our characters are the result of our conduct."
"Character is not created with a single act, no matter how brilliant or bold. It is forged in the smallest of struggles, the product of a thousand, thousand strokes. Your tool for carving your character’s template lies, in the words of the poet Robert Lowell, within your “peculiar power to choose.” Ultimately, it is the choice of the fundamental over the frivolous, preferring what is true over what’s accepted, the choosing of what is right over what is easy."
"Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; * * * he had two distinct persons in him."
"We moved from what cultural historians call a culture of character to a culture of personality. During the culture of character, what was important was the good deeds that you performed when nobody was looking. … But at the turn of the (20th) century, when we moved into this culture of personality, suddenly what was admired was to be magnetic and charismatic."
"Thou art a cat, and rat, and a coward to boot."
"Every one is the son of his own works."
"Cada uno es come Dios le hijo, y aun peor muchas vezes."
"The Master [Confucius] said, 'In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.'"
"A demd damp, moist, unpleasant body."
"Men of light and leading."
"For every inch that is not fool, is rogue."
"The clearest indication of character is what people find laughable."
"Character in important and less important matters is that a man should steadily pursue whatever course he feels to be within his capacity."
"We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable subjects for biographies. But we don't care most for those flat pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium."
"Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace."
"If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."
"If you wish to know someone, you need only observe that on which he bestows his care, and what sides of his own nature he cultivates."
"Those about whom you inquire have moulded with their bones into dust. Nothing but their words remain. When the hour of the great man has struck he rises to leadership; but before his time has come he is hampered in all that he attempts. I have heard that the successful merchant carefully conceals his wealth, and acts as though he had nothing—that the great man, though abounding in achievements, is simple in his manners and appearance. Get rid of your pride and your many ambitions, your affectation and your extravagant aims. Your character gains nothing for all these. This is my advice to you."
"A tender heart; a will inflexible."
"Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error."
"And the chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous."
"Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is—more knave than fool."
"Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved."
"Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall."
"Any character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by applying certain means; which are to a great extent at the command and under the controul, or easily made so, of those who possess the government of nations."