Quotes About Character

So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice.

We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.

And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance the one always rises as the other falls.

The very good and the very wicked are both quite rare, and that most men are between those extremes.

the strongest seeds most need the accompaniment of good air and soil, so the best of human characters turn out the worst when they fall upon an unsuitable soil;

Harmony and grace depend on simplicity… the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character.

Deixa que te desprezem, te considerem insensato, te insultem, se quiserem, e até, por Zeus, sofre que te esbofeteiem, coisa que tu achas entre todas infamante: não te acontecerá nenhum mal se fores realmente um homem de bem, dedicado à prática da virtude.

The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato

Once you have the means of life, you must practice virtue.

pas encore quelle est cette vertu, je demande seulement s'ils s'acquittent bien de leur fonction par la vertu qui leur est propre, et mal par un vice contraire. Certainement.

De modo que, al tratar de ver el alma que es filosófica y la que no, examinarás desde la juventud del sujeto si esa alma es justa y mansa o insociable y agreste.

El más honrado y el más sencillo no es reprimir a los demás, sino prepararse para ser lo mejor posible.

El hombre de bien tan pronto es malo, tan pronto bueno.

los viciosos no pueden hacerse viciosos, sin que antes hayan sido virtuosos.

The only thing he ought to consider, if he does anything, is whether he does right or wrong , whether it is what a good man does or a bad man.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Matilah dengan iradat, tetapi hiduplah dengan tabiat.

only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it

Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus—they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than himself.

No debemos necesariamente convenir en que el carácter y las costumbres de un Estado se encuentran en cada uno de los individuos que lo componene, puesto que sólo por medio de ellos han podido pasar al Estado?

virtuoso, aunque se jacte de ello, le reprenderé por desestimar lo más valioso y sobrestimar lo que tiene menos valor.

Temperance, which they nickname Unmanliness...

Una de las mejores frases que ha sido atribuida a Pítaco, y que más han alabado los sabios, es justamente esta: es difícil ser virtuoso.