Selected character quotes

1. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

2. In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

3. If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

4. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

5. I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice.

6. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.

7. I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.

8. The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.

9. At the root of the assault on our liberties is, in fact, an assault on our character--an assault that assumes that we are not good enough to be free, and that aims to make sure that we are no longer strong enough, courageous enough, disciplined enough to be a free people.

10. Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them.

11. The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.

12. The man who worships mere wealth is a snob.

13. Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.

14. When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with so excellent a disposition.

15. Patience is a flatterer, sir, and an ass, sir.

16. Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

17. Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

18. Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

19. It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.

20. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

21. The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

22. The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

23. We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.

24. You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

25. I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence.

26. If I could make only one wish for a child, I'd wish him the quality of lovingness.

27. People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.

28. I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

29. Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.

30. When they asked Jack Benny to do something for the Actor's Orphanage - he shot both his parents and moved in.

31. I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me.

32. Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

33. The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.

34. Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

35. There are very many characteristics which go into making a model civil servant. Prominent among them are probity, industry, good sense, good habits, good temper, patience, order, courtesy, tact, self-reliance, many deference to superior officers, and many consideration for inferiors.

36. Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn't even the star of his own Halloween special.

37. As well as being a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family, Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist.

38. It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it.

39. A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion, has nothing to do but to rejoice in her, and be thankful.

40. You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit.

41. Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

42. Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.

43. That kid had heart.

44. Not content with discoursing on supermen, the author presents them in the flesh - or whatever it is they are made of.

45. He was drawn to the centers of learning to announce his startling philosophy; from most he was curtly expelled... He was contradictory, capricious, often insufferable: his moods could flash abruptly from antic lampooning to raw invective, from wild exhilaration to fierce bitterness, from clownishness to a blackdog melancholy. 'Gay in sorrow, sorrowful in gaiety,' he said of himself, and the contraries of the tempestuous Bruno survive in his writings, where exalted and discerning passages seem to bob and dip in great waves of bombast... Controversial and largely dismissed in his lifetime, Bruno fared no better after his death. If his ideas were disputed, so was his martyrdom. For centuries, rumor and doubt shrouded the terrible fire in the Campo dei Fiore and as late as 1885 there are references to the 'legends' of Bruno's burning at the stake... Only in the twentieth century has Bruno begun emerging from his long neglect into prominence.

46. Ziggy played guitar

47. Rope: Rupert Cadell

48. Conan the Barbarian

49. She is a la la la liar!

50. We talk a great deal about patriotism. What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility which will enable America to remain master of her power - to walk with it in serenity and wisdom, with self-respect and the respect of all mankind; a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. The dedication of a lifetime - these are words that are easy to utter, but this is a mighty assignment. For it is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

51. You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.

52. He had that quality for which the Africans, who know how to appreciate it, have found a special term. 'Nommo' is the Bantu word for the gift of making life rather larger and more vivid for everyone else.

53. Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions.

54. I don't think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyone else must have felt the same! I don't know what I'd imagined - something like Sherlock Holmes - [...] Of course, I knew he was a foreigner, but I hadn't expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean. When you saw him you just wanted to laugh! He was like something on the stage or at the pictures. [...] He looked like a hairdresser in a comic play!

55. It would be difficult Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.

56. Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

57. This I can venture to advance from a thorough knowledge of him, that there are few men to be found, of his age, who has a more general knowledge than he possesses, and none whose Soul is more firmly engaged in the cause, or who exceeds him in probity and Sterling virtue.

58. The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.

59. 'And that's Jaska, one crazy son-of-a-BIATCH!'

60. He was as great as a man can be without morality.

61. In the end, the state of the Union comes down to the character of the people. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. In the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. In her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

62. In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don't want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.

63. It is tragic that the Fuehrer should have the whole nation behind him with the single exception of the Army generals. In my opinion it is only by action that they can now atone for their faults of lack of character and discipline.

64. That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.

65. The ineffable dunce has nothing to say : embroidering it with reasonless vulgarities of attitudes, gestures and attire. There was never an impostor so hateful : a crank so variously stupid and dull. He makes me tired.

66. I owe much to my friends; but, all things considered, it strikes me that I owe even more to my enemies. The real person springs to life under a sting even better than under a caress.

67. This Johnson is a queer man.

68. I have known Andy for many years... he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared. Andy ain't a drunkard.

69. Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

70. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

71. The only way to truly know a person is to argue with them. For when they argue in full swing, then they reveal their true character.

72. He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful.

73. 'True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.'

74. 'Clothes and manners do not make the man, but where he is made they greatly improve his appearance.'

75. The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

76. 'Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.

77. Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

78. Rascals are always sociable - more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company.

79. The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.

80. I said one day that Dole had a temper, and he got madder than hell. He has one. He has a mean one.

81. The most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency.

82. Unlike nearly every other politician who ever lived, anywhere in the world, Barry Goldwater always said exactly what was on his mind. He spared his listeners nothing.

83. I always came away...with the impression that he was a great patriot and a truly fine human being.

84. He was your friend forever, but if your opponent, an implacable foe. He never changed.

85. Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

86. A man's fate is his own temper.

87. Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

88. Little things affect little minds.

89. There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

90. A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

91. Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

92. Charles Greville was the most conceited person with whom I have ever been brought in contact, though I have read Cicero and known Bulwer-Lytton.

93. The right honourable gentleman is reminiscent of a poker. The only difference is that a poker gives off the occasional signs of warmth. (On Robert Peel)

94. William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

95. You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

96. What strikes me most singular in you is, that you are fonder of Power than of Fame.

97. Alice is much a focused rebellion, he's a fantastic cartoon character almost, if you like, and therefore he's still successful today-my kid, 11 years old, loves Alice Cooper.

98. The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done - that no one else has told you to do or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often gets buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others on the individual.

99. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

100. All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.