Quotes About Character

Javert, though hideous, was not ignoble.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

any one who had listened to Courfeyrac in 1828 would have thought he heard Tholomyes in 1817. Only, Courfeyrac was an honourable fellow. Beneath the apparent similarities of the exterior mind, the difference between him and Tholomyes was very great. The latent man which existed in the two was totally different in the first from what it was in the second. There was in Tholomyes a district attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin.

I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them.

Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only seen among men.

My friends, remember this: There are no bad herbs, and no bad men; there are only bad cultivators.

There are for each of us several parallelisms between our intelligence, our habits, and our character, which develop without a break, and break only in the great disturbances of life.

Sire, said M. Myriel, you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man. Each of us can profit by it.

Was there a voice that whispered in his ear that he had just passed the most solemn moment of his destiny, that there was no longer a middle course for him; that from now on, he would either be the best of men or he would be the worst of men; that he now had to rise higher, so to speak, than the bishop or fall even lower than the galley slave; that if he wanted to be good, he had to be an angel; that if he wanted to stay bad, he had to be a monster from hell?

A man's eye reveals his quality. It shows how much of a man there is within us. We declare ourselves by the light that gleams under our eyebrows. Petty spirits merely wink; great spirits emit a flash of lightning.

To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright.

He was a friendly but sad figure. People said of him: 'A rich man who is not proud. A fortunate man who does not look happy.

When they saw him making money, they said, He is a man of business. When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, He is an ambitious man. When he was seen to decline honors, they said, He is an adventurer. When they saw him repulse society, they said, He is a brute.

No man was created good by God, nor can be made entirely bad by man.

To be wicked does not insure prosperity.

Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him.

For a person's nature,like a rock,can be drilled into by drops of water.For a person's nature,like a rock,can be drilled into by drops of water.For a person's nature,like a rock,can be drilled into by drops of water.For a person's nature,like a rock,can be drilled into by drops of water.

True or false, what is said about people often has as much bearing on their lives and especially on their destinies as what they do.

Ystäväni, painakaa mieleenne, ettei ole olemassa enempää huonoja kasveja kuin huonoja ihmisiäkään. On vain huonoja viljelijöitä. (Jean Valjean)

Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.

Questro libro è un dramma in cui il primo personaggio è l'infinito: l'uomo il secondo.

True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do

In these aspirations, much more than in deliberate, rational coordinated ideas, is the real character of a man to be found. Our chimeras are the things which the most resemble us. Each

était bien fait de sa personne, quoique d'assez petite