Quotes About Character

The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them? that it was a vain endeavor?

The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.

A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit until we have so conducted that we feel like new men in the old.

There is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

I will not through humility become the devil's attorney

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.

In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake. But an unwavering and commanding virtue would compel even its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its ever wakeful authority; as we are accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed of such a thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.

It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within outward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller, who is the only builder, – out of some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness, without ever a thought for the appearance; and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty of life.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

Ci sono novecentonovantanove sostenitori della virtù ogni uomo virtuoso, ma è più facile trattare con il reale possessore di qualcosa che con il suo guardiano temporaneo.

What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot to-day?

O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man; but it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.

Toda a nobreza logo começa a refinar os traços de um homem; toda mesquinharia ou sensualidade, a embrutecê-los

Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.

I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.