Character

"Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche."

"Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise—the head, the heart, are stuffed with goods. * * * There are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship, but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with earthy and material things."

"Many men build as cathedrals were built, the part nearest the ground finished; but that part which soars toward heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever incomplete."

"Most men are bad."

"Une grande incapacité inconnue."

"I look upon you as a gem of the old rock."

"No, when the fight begins within himself, A man's worth something."

"Your father used to come home to my mother, and why may not I be a chippe of the same block out of which you two were cutte?"

"Are you a bromide?"

"All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities."

"He was not merely a chip of the old Block, but the old Block itself."

"From their folded mates they wander far, Their ways seem harsh and wild: They follow the beck of a baleful star, Their paths are dream-beguiled."

"With more capacity for love than earth Bestows on most of mortal mould and birth, His early dreams of good out-stripp'd the truth, And troubled manhood follow'd baffled youth."

"Genteel in personage, Conduct, and equipage; Noble by heritage, Generous and free."

"Clever men are good, but they are not the best."

"We are firm believers in the maxim that, for all right judgment of any man or thing, it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad."

"It is in general more profitable to reckon up our defects than to boast of our attainments."

"It can be said of him, When he departed he took a Man's life with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time."

"He was a verray perfight gentil knight."

"The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an Earldom."

"Importunitas autem, et inhumanitas omni ætati molesta est."

"Ut ignis in aquam conjectus, continuo restinguitur et refrigeratur, sic refervens falsum crimen in purissimam et castissimam vitam collatum, statim concidit et extinguitur."

"What was said of Cinna might well be applied to him. He [Hampden] had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute, any mischief."

"In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong."

"Not to think of men above that which is written."

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

"He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score, Then kill a constable, and drink five more; But he can draw a pattern, make a tart, And has ladies' etiquette by heart."

"He's tough, ma'am,—tough is J. B.; tough and de-vilish sly."

"O Mrs. Higden, Mrs. Higden, you was a woman and a mother, and a mangler in a million million."

"I know their tricks and their manners."

"Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child."

"Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace."

"Plain without pomp, and rich without a show."

"There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms."

"She was and is (what can there more be said?) On earth the first, in heaven the second maid."

"A trip-hammer, with an Æolian attachment."

"Character is higher than intellect. * * * A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think."

"No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character."

"A great character, founded on the living rock of principle, is, in fact, not a solitary phenomenon, to be at once perceived, limited, and described. It is a dispensation of Providence, designed to have not merely an immediate, but a continuous, progressive, and never-ending agency. It survives the man who possessed it; survives his age,—perhaps his country, his language."

"Human improvement is from within outwards."

"Our thoughts and our conduct are our own."

"Every one of us, whatever our speculative opinions, knows better than he practices, and recognizes a better law than he obeys."

"Weak and beggarly elements."

"In every deed of mischief, he [Andronicus Comnenus] had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute."

"That man may last, but never lives, Who much receives, but nothing gives; Whom none can love, whom none can thank,— Creation's blot, creation's blank."

"A man not perfect, but of heart So high, of such heroic rage, That even his hopes became a part Of earth's eternal heritage."

"To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the conditions of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee for being right."

"Aufrichtig zu sein kann ich versprechen; unparteiisch zu sein aber nicht."

"Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt."

"Welch' höher Geist in einer engen Brust."