Character.—As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some God in him. The beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed.—Coleridge.
Character is not cut in marble—it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.—George Eliot.
Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,—spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man.—Whipple.
Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.—George Eliot.
Character is the diamond that scratches every other stone—Bartol.
Character is human nature in its best form. It is moral order embodied in the individual. Men of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well-governed state they are its best motive power; for it is moral qualities in the main which rule the world.—Samuel Smiles.
He whose life seems fair, if all his errors and follies were articled against him would seem vicious and miserable.—Jeremy Taylor.
In common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character: he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies.—Watts.
Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his manner of portraying another.—Richter.
We are not that we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for that we are capable of being.—Thoreau.