The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Benjamin Franklin2 quotes
He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas. — Benjamin Franklin · 1733Success has ruin’d many a Man. — Benjamin Franklin · 1752William Shakespeare2 quotes
His life was gentle and the elements
So mixed in him that nature might stand up
And say to all the world “This was a man.” — William Shakespeare · 1599Men should be what they seem. — William Shakespeare · 1604Adam Smith1 quote
Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. — Adam Smith · 1759Aeschylus1 quote
For he does not wish to appear the bravest, but to be the bravest. — Aeschylus · 467 BCAlbert Einstein1 quote
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. — Albert Einstein · 1955Alexander Pope1 quote
An honest man's the noblest work of God. — Alexander Pope · 1733Aristotle1 quote
The character which results from wealth is that of a prosperous fool. — Aristotle · 322 BCBertolt Brecht1 quote
No one can be good for long when goodness is not in demand. — Bertolt Brecht · 1943Boethius1 quote
For he that is fallen low did never firmly stand. — Boethius · 523Booker T. Washington1 quote
Character, not circumstances, makes the man. — Booker T. Washington · 1896Eric Taylor1 quote
Every man at some point in his life is gonna lose a battle. He's gonna fight and he's gonna lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle he does not lose himself. — Eric Taylor · 2006Francois de La Rochefoucauld1 quote
We need greater virtues to sustain good fortune than bad. — Francois de La Rochefoucauld · 1678Friedrich Nietzsche1 quote
What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. — Friedrich Nietzsche · 1889George Eliot1 quote
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds, and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man's critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character. — George Eliot · 1859Henry Fielding1 quote
There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true. — Henry Fielding · 1749Heraclitus1 quote
A man's character is his fate. — HeraclitusHesiod1 quote
Between us and excellence, the gods have placed the sweat of our brows. — Hesiod · 700 BCJ.K. Rowling1 quote
It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. — J.K. Rowling · 1998Joan Didion1 quote
Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs. — Joan Didion · 1961Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1 quote
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1790John Milton1 quote
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. — John Milton · 1644Julian Barnes1 quote
Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also—if this isn't too grand a word—our tragedy. — Julian Barnes · 2011Juvenal1 quote
No one ever suddenly became depraved. — Juvenal · 127Lucretius1 quote
So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains. — Lucretius · 55 BCMaria Edgeworth1 quote
We cannot judge either of the feelings of the character of men with perfect accuracy, from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversation, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters. — Maria Edgeworth · 1800Mattie Ross1 quote
They tell me you're a man with true grit. — Mattie Ross · 2010Novalis1 quote
I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that Fate and character are the same conception. — Novalis · 1802Ralph Waldo Emerson1 quote
Character is higher than intellect. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1837Seneca1 quote
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise. — Seneca · 65The Wolf1 quote
Because you are a character doesn't mean you have character. — The Wolf · 1994