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Quotes About Character

Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible.
~ Leo Tolstoy
He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how constrained.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Do not be interested in the quantity of people who respect and admire you, but in their quality. If bad people dislike you, so much the better. —LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
~ Leo Tolstoy
How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best described as strength of will.
~ Leo Tolstoy
those moments when once and for all a man shows his worth and that his whole past has not been in vain but has been a preparation for those moments.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Speeches, however eloquent and profound they may be, when put into the mouth of dramatic characters, if they be superfluous or unnatural to the position and character, destroy the chief condition of dramatic art—the illusion, owing to which the reader or spectator lives in the feelings of the persons represented...
~ Leo Tolstoy
I became convinced that almost all the priests of that religion, the writers, were immoral, and for the most part men of bad, worthless character, much inferior to those whom I had met in my former dissipated and military life;
~ Leo Tolstoy
By virtue of her character, Kitty always assumed the most beautiful things of people, especially those she did not know. And now, making guesses about who was who, what relations they were in, and what sort of people they were, Kitty imagined to herself the most beautiful characters and found confirmation in her observations.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Se?am se da sam u jednom od stotine romana koje sam to leto pro?itao našao jednog preterano strasnog junaka s gustim obrvama i toliko sam zaželeo da li?im na njega po spoljašnjosti (moralno sam se ose?ao sasvim isti on), da sam posmatraju?i svoje obrve pred ogledalom došao na misao da ih malo podšišam, da bi mi porasle guš?e.
~ Leo Tolstoy
You have a wholesome character, and you want all of life to made up of wholesome phenomena, but that doesn't happen... All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Don't steal rolls.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Out of all the vices, the most difficult is ingratitude.
~ Leo Tolstoy
I'm not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force of character to face them. "I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind," he said aloud.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral principles, but of immoral principles, Yashvin was Vronsky's greatest friend in the regiment.
~ Leo Tolstoy
It is clear that he is not an exceptional evil-doer, but a most ordinary boy; every one sees it—and that he has become what he is simply because he got into circumstances that create such characters, and, therefore, to prevent such a boy from going wrong the circumstances that create these unfortunate beings must be done away with.
~ Leo Tolstoy
I am certain, too, that such a soul, such a heart and principles, as are hers are not to be found elsewhere in the world of the present day." (I do not know whence he had derived the habit of saying that few good things were discoverable in the world of the present day, but at all events he loved to repeat the expression, and it somehow suited him.)
~ Leo Tolstoy
Tal vez la facultad de ver los defectos propios sea un hermoso rasgo de nuestro carácter. Pero los exageramos y nos consolamos de ellos con la ironía que tenemos siempre en los labios.
~ Leo Tolstoy
It's a bad sort of young lady who's only alive when she's being admired, and as soon as she's alone lets herself go altogether and finds no charm in anything - who's all for show, and nothing for herself.
~ Leo Tolstoy
Stavrovicha, is a selfish, vain, and unattractive creature who deserts her husband in favour of a young officer, Balashev. Her elderly, betrayed
~ Leo Tolstoy
She had wit, she had grace, she had beauty; But above all, she had truth.
~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Son muchos los hombres viles, pero junto a ellos, junto a esos cuya bajeza es una blasfemia de vida, existen otros: todos aquellos, los que vemos y los que no vemos, que no son así y que, por no serlo, salvan al mundo y al honor de vivir
~ Leon Degrelle
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
~ Leon Trotsky
Every mass action, regardless of its immediate aim, is a warning addressed to the leadership. This warning is at first mild in character, but becomes more and more resolute. By July it had become a threat. In October we have the final act.
~ Leon Trotsky