108 Character Quotes

From the pages of timeless literature to the scenes of our favorite films and TV shows, certain characters leave an indelible mark on our hearts and minds. Their words often encapsulate profound wisdom, wit, and emotion, resonating with us long after the last page is turned or the credits roll. Whether you’re seeking a bit of inspiration, a touch of humor, or a reflection on life’s complexities, delve into our curated collection of the top 108 character quotes that have captivated audiences across generations. Prepare to be moved, amused, and inspired by the unforgettable lines that define these iconic characters.

1. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” - Maya Angelou

2. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” - Helen Keller

3. “It is better to be alone than in bad company.” - George Washington

4. “You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. ” - Ronald Reagan

5. “We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.” - Michael Ondaatje

6. “A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.” - Charles de Gaulle

7. “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.” - Abraham Lincoln

8. “You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” - Paul McCartney

9. “Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.” - Aristotle

10. “What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.” - Anais Nin

11. “A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow. ” - Friedrich Nietzsche

12. “Character is much easier kept than recovered.” - Thomas Paine

13. “Thought creates character.” - Annie Bessant

14. “Character is not made by crisis. It is only exhibited.” - Robert Freeman

15. “Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what the reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character.” - Wayne W. Dyer

16. “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.""And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.""And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them.” - Jane Austen

17. “It's rather disconcerting to sit around a table in a critique of someone else's work, only to realize that the antagonist in the story is none other than yourself, and no one present thinks you're a very likable character.” - Michelle Richmond

18. “To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” - Theodore Roosevelt

19. “One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.” - John Burroughs

20. “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” - James A. Michener

21. “The world loves talent but pays off on character.” - John W. Gardner

22. “Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become. We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents.” - Harley King

23. “At the end of your lives you will not be judged by academic successes, the degrees or diplomas earned, the positions held, the material wealth acquired, or power and prestige, but rather on the basis of what you have become as persons and what you are in conduct and character.” - Howard W. Hunter

24. “Get to know two things about a man. How he earns his money and how he spends it. You will then have the clue to his character. You will have a searchlight that shows up the inmost recesses of his soul. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.” - Robert J. McCracken

25. “Developing better people should be the number one goal for any coach when dealing with kids. In trying to develop better people, we are going to develop more and better pros.” - Bobby Orr

26. “You're stubborn, Vlad.""Is that a compliment?” - Steven Brust

27. “People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

28. “Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

29. “I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” - Thomas Paine

30. “People adjust their behavior to fit the society they live in. They integrate because they have to. But what they are on the inside doesn't change.” - Sandra Brown

31. “I have a deep-down belief that there are folks in the world who are good through and through, and others who came in mean and will go out mean. It's like coffee. Once it's roasted, it all looks brown. Until you pour hot water on it and see what comes out. Folks get into hot water, you see what comes out.” - Nancy E. Turner

32. “A person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture—is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has character…” - John Stuart Mill

33. “Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.” - August Wilson

34. “Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.” - Virginia Woolf

35. “Choices determine character.” - Brandon Mull

36. “Poem by Howard A. Walter (Character)I would be true, for there are those who trust me;I would be pure, for there are those who care;I would be strong, for there are those who suffer;I would be brave, for there is much to dare.I would be friend of all--- the foe, the friendless;I would be giving, and forget the gift;I would be humble, for I know my weakness;I would look up, and laugh, and love, and lift.” - John C. Maxwell

37. “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” - James Allen

38. “My kinfolks thought more about character than about culture. They said culture could be acquired but character had to be formed. Character had to be hammered into shape like hot iron on an anvil. It had to be molded in the most exact and unrelenting form.” - Ben Robertson

39. “He came to chat with me the day of my being discharged, advising that I not stay at the dog fight until the last dog was dead. I was a kid and made little counsel. Now that I am a bigger kid, I see the value--belatedly--added. Yet I also see the loss of life in the protecting, first of all, of oneself. Better to give oneself away. Dead f*ck the dog and so on.” - Gordon Lish

40. “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” - Plato

41. “Nothing is more conductive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

42. “Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.” - David O. McKay

43. “A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.” - Charlie Chaplin

44. “Whenever you take on playing a villain, he has to cease to be a villain to you. If you judge this man by his time, he's doing very little wrong.” - Colin Firth

45. “There was not a moving up into vacated places; there was simply an anachronistic staying on between a vanishing past and an incalculable future.” - F.Scott Fitzgerald

46. “If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself.” - D.L. Moody

47. “The prospect of an early death sits differently upon each person. In some it gifts maturity far outweighing their age and experience: calm acceptance blossoms into a beautiful nature and soft countenance. In others, however, it leads to the formation of a tiny ice flint in their heart. Ice that, though at times concealed, never properly melts.Rose, though she would have liked to be one of the former, knew herself deep down to be one of the latter.” - Kate Morton

48. “The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it” - D.L. Moody

49. “Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.” - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

50. “Strength of character means the ability to overcome resentment against others, to hide hurt feelings, and to forgive quickly.” - Lawrence G. Lovasik

51. “The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.” - Plato

52. “There is an emotional promiscuity we’ve noticed among many good young men and women. The young man understands something of the journey of the heart. He wants to talk, to “share the journey.” The woman is grateful to be pursued, she opens up. They share the intimacies of their lives - their wounds, their walks with God. But he never commits. He enjoys her... then leaves. And she wonders, What did I do wrong? She failed to see his passivity. He really did not ever commit or offer assurances that he would. Like Willoughby to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility.Be careful you do not offer too much of yourself to a man until you have good, solid evidence that he is a strong man willing to commit. Look at his track record with other women. Is there anything to be concerned about there? If so, bring it up. Also, does he have any close male friends - and what are they like as men? Can he hold down a job? Is he walking with God in a real and intimate way? Is he facing the wounds of his own life, and is he also demonstrating a desire to repent of Adam’s passivity and/or violence? Is he headed somewhere with his life? A lot of questions, but your heart is a treasure, and we want you to offer it only to a man who is worthy and ready to handle it well.” - Stasi Eldredge

53. “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” - Sophocles

54. “A woman can't do anything about her appearance. Either she's pretty or she isn't. But her character is quite another matter.” - Julie Garwood

55. “I believe that this suffering, which Miss Hale says is impressed on the countenances of the people of Milton, is but the natural punishment of dishonestly-enjoyed pleasure, at some former period of their lives. I do not look on self-indulgent, sensual people as worthy of my hatred; I simply look upon them with contempt for their poorness of character.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

56. “True worth is being not seeming” - Alice Cary; Nobility

57. “Before I can say I am, I was. Heraclitus and I, prophets of flux, know that the flux is composed of parts that imitate and repeat each other. Am or was, I am cumulative, too. I am everything I ever was, whatever you and Leah may think. I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were -- inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familial.” - Wallace Stegner

58. “It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of te chest beneath that makes them seem so.” - C.S. Lewis

59. “Still, I never heard him say that he hated or wanted to hurt or kill someone for all the horrific things that had been happening to him and his family.” - Savo Heleta

60. “…I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws.' 'So's everybody's,' said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. 'Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line.” - L.M. Montgomery

61. “There’s no better way to get to know a city than to walk its streets. A place will reveal its soul through its sights, sounds and smells, and eventually, it’ll teach you its rhythm.” - Henry Mosquera

62. “The boundaries of this world are forever shifting – from day to night, joy to sorrow, love to hate, and from life itself to death; and who can say at what moment we may suddenly cross over the border, from one state of existence to another, like heat applied to some flammable substance? I have been given my own ever-changing margins, across which I move, continually and hungrily, like a migrating animal. Now civilized, now untamed; now responsive to decency and human concern, now viciously attuned to the darkest of desires.” - Michael Cox

63. “He lives who dies to win a lasting name.” - Henry Drummond

64. “Don't write about Man; write about a man.” - E.B. White

65. “The most difficult challenge an honest man will ever face is having to choose between duty and love.One creates a man of honorable character―a life worth dying for.The other creates a vulnerable soul that madly yearns for either death or immortality.” - Richelle Goodrich

66. “So odd. Most women of his acquaintance relied on physical beauty and charm to mask their less-pleasant traits. This girl did the opposite, hiding everything interesting about herself behind a prim, plain facade.What other surprises was she concealing?” - Tessa Dare

67. “É preciso que todos os que lidam comigo se convençam de que sou assim, e que exigir-me os sentimentos, aliás muito dignos, de um homem vulgar e banal, é como exigir-me que tenha olhos azuis e cabelo louro.” - Fernando Pessoa

68. “Her [Mrs Croft's] manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour. Anne gave her credit, indeed, for feelings of great consideration towards herself, in all that related to Kellynch; and it pleased her.” - Jane Austen

69. “Be an independent thinker at all times, and ignore anyone who attempts to define you in a limiting way.” - Sherry Argov

70. “You can tell the character of a person by their handshake.” - Kathy Magliato

71. “What people say about you, good or bad, is not nearly as important as what you are.” - Orrin Woodward

72. “Emma Willard told the legislature that the education of women "has been too exclusively directed to fit them for displaying to advantage the charms of youth and beauty" The problem, she said, was that "the taste of men, whatever it might happen to be, has made into a standard for the formation of the female character." Reason and religion teach us, she said, that "we too are primary existences...not the satellites of men.” - Howard Zinn

73. “Would you have references?""I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you." I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, "It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat.” - Jack Finney

74. “I study men like I study books: I skim their midsections.” - Bauvard

75. “From out of your heart, you speak."-Emma, When Crickets Cry” - Charles Martin

76. “There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

77. “Men of few words are the best men."(3.2.41)” - William Shakespeare

78. “I've discovered that in life, it doesn't matter how good of a person you are; it's human nature to be judged and to judge others by the blood they carry and the company they keep.” - Mz. Robinson

79. “Financial crashes happen precisely because the people who remember the last one have either died or retired and thus are no longer around, with memories and character formed by that previous experience, to warn people not to be irresponsible.” - N.T. Wright

80. “When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French parents worry if their kids are too docile. They want them to have character. But they believe that children can achieve these goals only if they respect boundaries and have self-control. So alongside character, there has to be cadre.” - Pamela Druckerman

81. “In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.” - Elizabeth Goudge

82. “He whines, he complains, he ducks out of the most obvious responsibility. He is vain, petty and maddening, but he doesn't ever quit.” - Megan Whalen Turner

83. “Understanding character is a vital part of the process of finding a relationship partner and developing a strong and vibrant relationship together.” - Susanne M. Alexander

84. “He was all of those things, of course, but none of those things.” - Marie Tillman

85. “Ann: You didn’t cause my miscarriages. But you are committed to transforming me to be like you.” - K. Howard Joslin

86. “It's not so much what we do that matters, but what kind of person we choose to be.” - Kristi Bowman

87. “I prefer to suffer than repent because I stand by my decision and capable enough top pay for it Or reap the beauty later.” - Ravindra Shukla

88. “The witness of solid moral character to a righteous way of life must never be underestimated.” - Arthur F. Holmes

89. “Leaders do what ought to be done whether their deeds are known by thousands or known by no one.” - Orrin Woodward

90. “He was a character.A character who should still be here. Damn it all to hell.He should still be here.” - Lisa Schroeder

91. “You think some are bad or evil or whatnot, but somewhere along the way they were someone's baby, suckling the teat like anybody. Then something puts a volt in 'em and they ain't the same no more.” - Alan Heathcock

92. “There is no greater evil than men's failure to consult and to consider.” - Sophocles

93. “A tough hide with a tender heart is a goal that all leaders must have.” - Wayde Goodall

94. “A character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered” - Thomas Hughes

95. “The viewpoint character in each story is usually someone trapped in a living nightmare, but this doesn't guarantee that we and the protagonist are at one. In fact Woolrich often makes us pull away from the person at the center of the storm, splitting our reaction in two, stripping his protagonist of moral authority, denying us the luxury of unequivocal identification, drawing characters so psychologically warped and sometimes so despicable that a part of us wants to see them suffer. Woolrich also denies us the luxury of total disidentification with all sorts of sociopaths, especially those who wear badges. His Noir Cop tales are crammed with acts of police sadism, casually committed or at least endorsed by the detective protagonist. These monstrosities are explicitly condemned almost never and the moral outrage we feel has no internal support in the stories except the objective horror of what is shown, so that one might almost believe that a part of Woolrich wants us to enjoy the spectacles. If so, it's yet another instance of how his most powerful novels and stories are divided against themselves so as to evoke in us a divided response that mirrors his own self-division.("Introduction")” - Francis M. Nevins

96. “A well-developed and versed character will write the story for you.” - A.R. Voss

97. “To stand by yourself -- that was also part of dignity. That way, a person could get through a public flaying with dignity. Galileo. Luther. Even somebody who admitted his guilt and resisted the temptation to deny it. Something politicians couldn't do. Honesty, the courage for honesty. With others and yourself.” - Pascal Mercier

98. “To test a man, determine how much it takes to make him lie.” - C.J. Langenhoven

99. “Since I am never alone with myself. Since I am always watching the character playing my part in the scene, there is no possibility of spontaneity.” - Ronan Bennett

100. “The character of Jesus can only be ultimately known experientially through the indwelling of His Spirit in union with us."~"The character of Jesus can only be ultimately known experientially through the indwelling of His Spirit in union with us."~R. Alan Woods [2013]” - R. Alan Woods

101. “Judge character by behavior.” - Lizelle Du Plessis

102. “You express the truth of your character with the choice of your actions.” - Steve Maraboli

103. “If you want to discover the true character of a person, you have only to observe what they are passionate about.” - Shannon L. Alder

104. “Humans elect leaders on the basis of the promises they make. We [vampires] try to elect ours based solely on the strength of their character.” - Darren Shan

105. “Inner strength of character cannot be measured by any means but performance in the time of need.” - K.L. Toth

106. “If a railroad is bent, the train shall turn over; if a man’s character is bent, he shall turn over just like that train.” - Mehmet Murat ildan

107. “Sometimes you have to look past a person’s mistakes to see God’s presence.” - Shannon L. Alder

108. “You can speak with spiritual eloquence, pray in public, and maintain a holy appearance... but it is your behavior that will reveal your true character.” - Steve Maraboli