character development quotes

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

Character is power.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

All right, then, I’ll go to hell.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honour for me.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.