Character

"'Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn; A Saint in Crape is twice a Saint in Lawn: A Judge is just, a Chanc'llor juster still; A Gownman learn'd; a Bishop what you will; Wise if a minister; but if a King, More wise, more learn'd, more just, more ev'rything."

"With too much Quickness ever to be taught; With too much Thinking to have common Thought."

"From loveless youth to unrespected age, No passion gratified, except her rage, So much the fury still outran the wit, That pleasure miss'd her, and the scandal hit."

"In men we various ruling passions find; In women two almost divide the kind; Those only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway."

"What then remains, but well our power to use, And keep good-humor still whate'er we lose? And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail."

"Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

"Our character is our spiritual constitution. It is not made for us, as the Owenites said: it is daily being made and modified by us, by means of our daily human acts. Countless tiny shellfish build up a coral-reef, or a chalk cliff; and countless acts make in time a character. Little acts come and go unnoticed; the result endures; and in the end we are surprised at its magnitude and permanence. Our daily acts, then, must be well done, excellently well done, at least with such excellence as is within our reach."

"If I am not better, at least I am different."

"When you start making a movie, you never know which will be the break out characters, the stars of the movie. That happened to us with Scrat (the saber toothed squirrel in Ice Age. We didn’t know that Scrat was going to be a superstar. Scrat doesn’t diminish the central Ice Age characters, Manny, Sid and Diego."

"I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak i' the cold wind."

"He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, Stigmatical in making, worse in mind."

"Though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I something in me dangerous."

"There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee."

"I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian, glad of mettle, a good boy."

"What a frosty-spirited rogue is this!"

"This bold bad man."

"O, he sits high in all the people's hearts: And that which would appear offence in us. His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness."

"Thou art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon."

"I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish."

"What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win."

"I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name."

"There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history Fully unfold."

"Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: Some that will evermore peep through their eyes, And laugh, like parrots, at a bagpiper: And other of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable."

"When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast."

"You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lantern."

"Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from this instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before."

"He hath a daily beauty in his life That makes me ugly."

"O do not slander him, for he is kind. Right; as snow in harvest."

"Now do I play the touch, To try if thou be current gold indeed."

"How this grace Speaks his own standing! what a mental power This eye shoots forth! How big imagination Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture One might interpret."

"The trick of singularity."

"He wants wit that wants resolved will."

"His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; * * * * * * His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth."

"As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."

"I'm called away by particular business. But I leave my character behind me."

"There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is difficult to be mistaken."

"Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam engine in trousers."

"He [Macaulay] is like a book in breeches."

"A bold bad man!"

"Inerat tamen simplicitas ac liberalitas, quæ, nisi adsit modus in exitium vertuntur."

"In turbas et discordias pessimo euique plurima vis: pax et quies bonis artibus indigent."

"He makes no friend who never made a foe."

"Just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character."

"The man that makes a character, makes foes."

"The man who consecrates his hours By vig'rous effort and an honest aim, At once he draws the sting of life and death; He walks with nature and her paths are peace."

"There is so much good in the worst of us, And so much bad in the best of us, That it ill behoves any of us To find fault with the rest of us."

"They love, they hate, but cannot do without him."

"In brief, I don't stick to declare, Father Dick, So they call him for short, is a regular brick; A metaphor taken—I have not the page aright— From an ethical work by the Stagyrite."

"Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche."

"An honest man, close-button'd to the chin, Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within."