Quotes About Character

To give him his due, he did not know that he was a villain.

If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain the aspirations of a man.

We must take him as he is. He was put into the army very young, and was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune. He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? As it is, he has nothing left." "I fear not." "And therefore is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?" "I call that stealing a girl's money, Lady Carbury.

But there was one truth she could not see, and therefore could not tell it to herself. She had not a heart to give. It had become petrified during those lessons of early craft in which she had taught herself how to get the better

I do not believe in a woman marrying a bad man in the hope of making him good." "Especially not when the woman is naturally inclined to evil herself.

He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes.

She had known his faults and weaknesses, and was probably aware that he was inferior to herself in character and intellect. But, nevertheless, she had loved him. To her he had been, though not heroic, sufficiently a man to win her heart. He was a gentleman, pleasant-mannered, pleasant to look at, pleasant to talk to, not educated in the high sense of the word, but never making himself ridiculous by ignorance.

A certain class of dishonesty … has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.

Mr Moffat was a young man of very large fortune, in Parliament, inclined to business, and in every way recommendable. He was not a man of birth, to be sure; that was to be lamented;

Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa where munny is." Mrs. Greystock would have repudiated the idea of mercenary marriages in any ordinary conversation, and would have been severe on any gentleman who was false to a young lady. But it is so hard to bring one's general principles to bear on one's own conduct or in one's own family; — and then the Greystocks were so peculiar a people!

She could flatter also, though her very flattery had always in it something that was disagreeable.

Poor Eleanor! I cannot say that with me John Bold was ever a favourite.

Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so.

You can't alter a man's nature. Oswald was born to be a master of hounds, and you were born to be a Secretary of State.

I dare say, and as it doesn't displease me all is well. You, however, have quite sense enough to understand, that in this house more is thought of—of—of— he would have said blood, but that he did not wish to hurt her,—more is thought of personal good conduct than of rings and jewels.

A man who is a gentleman in his cups may be trusted to be a gentleman at all times.

CHAPTER LXXII 'BID HIM BE A MAN

At any rate, it is as easy to do that as to tell of the man who is one hour good and the next bad, who aspires greatly but fails in practice, who sees the higher but too often follows the lower course.

She was made to sparkle, to be bright with outside garniture, — to shine and glitter, and be rich in apparel. The only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her character.

Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.

You can run down a demi-god only by making him out to be a demi-devil.  These

It cannot be said that she was a bad woman, though she had in her time done an indescribable amount of evil. She had endeavoured to do good, failing partly by ignorance and partly from the effects of an unbridled, ambitious temper.

he understood well that code of by-laws which was presumed to constitute the character of a gentleman in his circle.

When they are married, yes; and every girl who thinks of marrying should know that in very much she must adapt herself to her husband. But I do not think that a woman should be the ivy, to take the direction of every branch of the tree to which she clings. If she does so, what can be her own character? But we must go on, or we shall be too late.