Quotes About Character

Some people, you would think, are made up of nothing but title and genealogy; the stamp of dignity defaces in them the very character of humanity, and transports them to such a degree of haughtiness that they reckon it below them to exercise good nature or good manners.

It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.

Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.

A man must be very inert to have no character at all.

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.

It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and sanctimonious as well; she should select only one of those qualities.

We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.

When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a Vizor and a Face.

A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.

Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances.

We are often more agreeable through our faults than our good qualities.

We confess small faults to insinuate that we have no great ones.

Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching.

We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.

Only great men have great faults.

A fool has not stuff enough to make a good man.

Our virtues are usually just vices in disguise.

A man should respect a man for who he is, not for the rank he wears

The inner life is the whole man, and forms all the worth of man.

Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters.

Virtue, like a dowerless beauty, has more admirers than followers.

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.

the mark of a man is his contradictions.

You were true to her, even if she was not to you. Never repent of your own goodness, child. To stay true in the face of evil is a feat of great strength." "Strength," she said with a little laugh. "I gave her strength, and look what she did with it.