The measure of man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
Character Quotes
In a president, character is everything. A president doesn’t have to be brilliant… He doesn’t have to be clever; you can hire clever… You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you can’t buy courage and decency, you can’t rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring those […]
Every man has three characters; that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.
Respect for character, though often a salutary restraint, is but too often overruled by other motives. When numbers of men act in a body, respect for character is often lost, just in proportion as it is necessary to control what is not right.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
You often ask me, Priscus, what sort of man I should I be, if all of a sudden I became rich and powerful. Do you think that anybody can tell you what his future character will be? Tell me, if you became a lion, what sort of lion would you be?
Occasions do not make a man either strong or weak but they show what he is.
With red hair, a black face, a cloven foot, and blear eyes, you show the world a prodigy, Zoilus, if you are an honest man.
A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.
All of your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be vain if at the same time you did not build your character and attain mastery over your thoughts and your actions.
