Quotes about: character

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
I pride myself on my capacity to perceive the transitory character of everything. An odd gift which spoiled all my joys; better: all my sensations. I have decided not to oppose anyone ever again, since I have noticed that I always end by resembling my latest enemy.
– Emile M. Cioran
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.
– Henry Clay
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.
– Cyril Connolly
You jot down ideas, memories, whatever, concerning your real life that somehow parallels the character you're playing, and you incorporate that in your scene work.
– Chris Cooper
Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.
– Stephen Covey
Public behavior is merely private character writ large.
– Stephen Covey
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency.
– Quentin Crisp
Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.
– Quentin Crisp
If you ever come to feel any doubt of my character or of my heartfelt devotion to you... the title of Father of My Country will give me no additional honor, but will be a reproach to you, either for your hasty action in conferring the appellation upon me, or for your inconsistency in changing your estimate of my character.
– Tiberius
I think being mean to people in high school is healthy. It's sort of like you're in this situation with all these other kids and sometimes you need to get your aggression out. And if you'd had people be mean to you before, it really does build character.
– Lizzy Caplan
In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers. Laurie, Jamie Lee's character, was shy and somewhat repressed. And Michael Myers, the killer, is definitely repressed. They have certain similarities.
– John Carpenter
There is no glory in war, yet from the blackness of its history, there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends.
– Silvia Cartwright
The person of intellect is lost unless they unite with energy of character. When we have the lantern of Diogenese we must also have his staff.
– Lewis Cass
If a leader demonstrates competency, genuine concern for others, and admirable character, people will follow.
– T. Richard Chase
The purpose of Christianity is not to avoid difficulty, but to produce a character adequate to meet it when it comes. It does not make life easy; rather it tries to make us great enough for life.
– James L. Christensen
Reduced to its lowest terms, the great struggle which now rocks the whole earth more and more takes on the character of a struggle of the individual versus the state.
– J. Reuben Clark
Nor is it out of character that Chicago's grandest achievement- a largely manmade arc of lakefront parks and beaches - began as a mistake. from waste thrown into Lake Michigan a 75-year-old dump.
– Pat Colander
I knew as I was writing City of Bones that this had to be the end of him as a cop and possibly even a character. But the bottom-line feeling when I was finished with that novel was that there was more I could do with Harry, things that would keep me plugged in and interested.
– Michael Connelly
It seems that in a lot of foreign countries the crime novel is placed on a higher shelf and recognized more as a method of holding up a mirror to society. In the US there is more of a sense that these are entertainments or puzzles first, social investigations or character studies second. Consequently, when I have traveled overseas the questions I tend to get from media and people at book signings tend to be more in regard to the deeper themes and subjects of the books.
– Michael Connelly
What is overriding that and most important is that readers generally are interested in a good character. They might be more comfortable with Harry because they think they know him, but they always seem willing to give somebody new a chance.
– Michael Connelly
One can't, just by writing out line formulas on a two-dimensional sheet of paper, get a feeling for the three-dimensional character of a compound.
– Donald Cram
History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances.
– Donald Creighton
Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.
– Salvador Dali
I want to do is a character-driven porn movie. It's all going to be about characters, and the porn's gonna grow all out of the character's and it's going to serve as character development.
– Matt Damon
With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.
– Clarence Darrow
I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.
– Bette Davis
Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character.
– Clarence Day
I couldn't deal with playing a character who rides motorcycles and has a leather jacket and is a tough kid, y'know?
– Leonardo DiCaprio
I like to be able to play a character and act out a lot of things which I can't or don't do in my normal everyday life.
– Leonardo DiCaprio
I really don't know what I'm doing... I don't. It's terrible. I go in there and I learn how to be like the character and do the best I can, and that's all I really do.
– Leonardo DiCaprio
I rejected it many times because I thought it was just another commercial film. Sharon Stone and everything. But then, with one day to decide, I said, 'OK'. I like Sam Raimi and this character's really funny and cool.
– Leonardo DiCaprio
It was the simple fact that there was probably not a cooler character on earth that I could play.
– Leonardo DiCaprio
The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it... It's a great outlet. I'm not really sure who I am-it seems I change every day.
– Leonardo DiCaprio
Alice is much a focused rebellion, he's a fantastic cartoon character almost, if you like, and therefore he's still successful today-my kid, 11 years old, loves Alice Cooper.
– Bruce Dickinson
There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.
– Benjamin Disraeli
There is no index of character so sure as the voice.
– Benjamin Disraeli
You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.
– Norman Douglas
I've actually never been interested in sci-fi. The X-files was a job I auditioned for because I liked the script, and I liked the character of Mulder. At that time, it was a lot different to the kind of roles I'd done, which were more sexual. And I found this character to be edgier and more asexual. The same happened with Evolution. I took the role because I wanted to do a comedy.
– David Duchovny
Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.
– Helen Gahagan Douglas
Change is an easy panacea. It takes character to stay in one place and be happy there.
– Elizabeth Clarke Dunn
Moderate desires constitute a character fitted to acquire all the good which the world can yield. He who has this character is prepared, in whatever situation he is, therewith to be content and has learned the science of being happy.
– Timothy Dwight
What a man's mind can create, man's character can control.
– Thomas A. Edison
Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.
– Tryon Edwards
Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it's intimate and psychological - resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul.
– Barbara Ehrenreich
One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.
– Albert Einstein
Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Remarkable trait in the American Character is the union, not very infrequent, of Yankee cleverness with spiritualism.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; it seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.
– Epictetus
Knowledge has outstripped character development, and the young today are given an education rather than an upbringing.
– Ilya Ehrenburg
I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.
– Nathaniel Emmons
A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.
– Evan Esar
One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.
– L. Estrange
I always knew I wanted to be a character in the movies. When I was growing up, I had to have a lot of surgery, and I spent a lot of time recovering at home and in the hospital. Watching movies took me away from my own problems and gave me a total escape.
– Josh Ryan Evans
Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
– Sam Ewing
I was a mostly happy child, though I had a pretty rough puberty. Growing up as a girl is always traumatizing, especially when you have the deadly combination of greasy skin and getting your boobs at ten. But I think it's good to grow up that way. It builds character.
– Tina Fey
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.
– Henry Ford
A man without decision of character can never be said to belong to himself. He belongs to whatever can make captive of him.
– John Foster
It is the food which you furnish to your mind that determines the whole character of your life.
– Emmet Fox
The psychoanalysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the intimate connection between wetting the bed and the character trait of ambition.
– Sigmund Freud
From blood banking to the modern subway, from jazz to social justice, the contributions of African Americans have shaped and molded and influenced our national culture and our national character.
– Bill Frist
From slavery to segregation, we remember that America did not always live up to its ideals. In fact, we often fell far short of them. But we also learned that fundamental to our national character is the drive to live out the true meaning of our creed.
– Bill Frist
Well, then it's my responsibility, too, because as an actress I have to take the responsibility for taking a part where I have to murder somebody. Is somebody going to get the idea to kill someone from watching it? I have to make the assumption that the people watching it are intelligent enough to know that I'm playing a character.
– Terry Farrell
I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow.
– Oded Fehr
To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.
– Albert Finney
Character is not made in a crisis it is only exhibited.
– Robert Freeman
Technique is of less interest than character and story.
– William Friedkin
The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor.
– John Kenneth Galbraith
A dissolute character is more dissolute in thought than in deed. And the same is true of violence. Our violence in word and deed is but a feeble echo of the surging violence of thought in us.
– Mahatma Gandhi
No religion which is narrow and which cannot satisfy the test of reason, will survive the coming reconstruction of society in which the values will have changed and character, not possession of wealth, title or birth will be the test of merit.
– Mahatma Gandhi
The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.
– Charles de Gaulle
There is nothing so fatal to character as half finished tasks.
– David Lloyd George
Style is the image of character.
– Edward Gibbon
Deep Space Nine was also fun. I was kind of hoping that they would have my character back some time. Here was a guy who felt so inadequate and he turned evil in order to get what he felt he deserved. It was such a fascinating part to play. The cast and crew were incredibly supportive and welcoming to me.
– John Glover
The power that an artist can have to move people, I just want to equip myself better with those kind of skills. I see myself as a character actor, not as a leading actor, and in something like Time of Your Life, I'm being asked to strengthen my chops and take some responsibilities. There's some kind of deepening that needs to be done.
– John Glover
Character develops itself in the stream of life.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The higher mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial male who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character.
– Emma Goldman
To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.
– Emma Goldman
I've had high regard for a great many actors. I started out as a serious actor. I didn't start out as a comic actor at all. That just developed because I happened to be louder than anyone else. If they wanted a blowhard character, they called on me. I've had innumerable people that I've respected and venerated.
– Gale Gordon
Radio wasn't so bad because you didn't have to memorize the lines. But you did have to do everything because your own character was in your voice-that took a little doing. Most people thought that if you could speak English or read then you could be a radio actor. Well, that wasn't so. You had to put a great deal into your reading to convince somebody who was just listening that a certain character is speaking.
– Gale Gordon
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
– Billy Graham
It takes a long time to educate a community and it can't be done by spellbinders, moneybags, hypnotizers or magicians or Aladdin's lamp. Character is what matters on a paper.
– Harry J. Grant
Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.
– Horace Greeley
Benny Hill's character is this twisted sexual deviant who professes his love for obese women, which I thought was so funny. There was nothing like that in this movie, so I thought it would be fun to play my character as someone who had no social graces, yet was embittered by the fact he was universally refused by women.
– Seth Green
A major character has to come somehow out of the unconscious.
– Graham Greene
The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.
– Graham Greene
In hard-core science fiction in which characters are responding to a change in environment, caused by nature or the universe or technology, what readers want to see is how people cope, and so the character are present to cope, or fail to cope.
– James Gunn
Acting is not that far from mental disease: An actor works on splitting his character into others. It is like a kind of schizophrenia.
– Vittorio Gassman
Believing that in a wise way it is good to go to church, and that associating with Christians would improve my character, I have adopted the Christian religion... I am not ashamed to be a Christian... I have advised all of my people who are not Christians, to study that religion, because it seems to me the best religion in enabling one to live right.
– Geronimo