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Quotes about character

73 verified quotes from 37 writers, c. 475 BC to 1923.

Quotes 50 to 73 of 73, page 3 of 3.

Continued from page 1, which has our introduction. Still oldest first.

What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.

  2. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.

    Marmee (Mrs. March), in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868

    Our note: Marmee confessing her own temper to Jo, who is struggling with hers.

    Verified in the full text of Little Women on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #514

    Painted the same decade: The Dead Christ with Angels, Edouard Manet, 1864

  5. That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil—widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower

    Dorothea Brooke, in Middlemarch by George Eliot, 1872

    Our note: Dorothea explains to Will Ladislaw the belief that keeps her going.

    Verified in the full text of Middlemarch on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #145

    Painted the same decade: Sulking, Edgar Degas, ca. 1870

  10. Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die

    Rudyard Kipling, How Fear Came, 1895

    Our note: The opening of the Jungle's Law, a verse about keeping to the rules of the pack.

    Verified in the full text of How Fear Came on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1937 · Collected in The Second Jungle Book

    Painted the same decade: The Englishman (William Tom Warrener, 1861–1934) at the Moulin Rouge, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892

  12. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem

    Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1901

    Our note: From the 1895 Atlanta address, which Washington reprints in his autobiography.

    Verified in the full text of Up from Slavery on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2376

  13. Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

    Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1901

    Our note: Washington on what General Armstrong's trust did for him and for his students.

    Verified in the full text of Up from Slavery on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2376

  14. I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

    Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1901

    Our note: Washington on the habit of mind that carried him through the founding of Tuskegee.

    Verified in the full text of Up from Slavery on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2376

  15. …assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak

    Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, 1901

    Our note: Washington reflecting on what he had learned about helping and harming others.

    Verified in the full text of Up from Slavery on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2376

  21. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

    Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

    Our note: From the long letter Wilde wrote in prison, first published in part after his death.

    Verified in the full text of De Profundis on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #921

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