Top 100 Great Character Quotes
#1. Catholic schools carry out a great mission, to serve God by building knowledge and character ... By teaching the word of God, you prepare your students to follow a path of virtue.
George W. Bush
#2. There are persons who seem to have overcome obstacles and by character and perseverance to have risen to the top. But we have no record of the numbers of able persons who fall by the wayside, persons who, with enough encouragement and opportunity, might make great contributions.
Mary Barnett Gilson
#3. Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time ... Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.
Swami Vivekananda
#4. Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#5. People realize that Salieri is not the man we saw in the Amadeus movie. That man had no talent. It was a great movie, but the Salieri character was a big fiction.
Cecilia Bartoli
#6. I often concentrate on the eyes and lips, they are great indicators of mood and feeling, and I find that I can project character into my portraits by bringing the viewer's attention to these areas.
Robert Ryan
#7. Mostly, I'm drawn to great characters and great worlds that use weird things for their language - whether it's dance, whether it's pop music with Justin Bieber, or whether it's magic.
Daniel Radcliffe
#8. Have the courage to analyze great emotions to create characters who shall be lofty and true. The whole art of the analytical novel lies there.
Paul Bourget
#9. There is a great deal more to be got out of things than is generally got out of them, whether the thing be a chapter of the Bible or a yellow turnip, and the marvel is that those who use the most material should so often be those that show the least result in strength or character.
George MacDonald
#10. He's very competitive and knows what he wants. He has developed toughness in character and that is what is needed for Indian cricket. Ganguly has proved to be one of the best captains. He has now acquired great leadership qualities.
Steve Waugh
#11. I have always been a big fan of the character and am more of a moviegoer than a comic book guy, there is always something about the character of Batman that is very elemental. There is a great powerful myth to the character and romantic element that draws from a lot of literary sources
Christopher Nolan
#12. If we get to shoot the third one, which I'm really hoping we do, the third one's great. There's a big uprising and rebellion, and my character Gale's a big part of that. If we get to shoot that, I'll be very, very pleased.
Liam Hemsworth
#13. I've been doing It's Aways Sunny for 12 years, and so I have this cable sensibility. When I read the Grinder script, I was like "this is edgy," which is great, but in a different way from Arrested Development. I feel like the characters are a little more relatable, so maybe that's the difference.
Mary Elizabeth Ellis
#14. lost a great innocence when I understood that I and my mind were not going to be on good terms for the rest of my life. I can't tell you how tired I am of character-building experiences. But I treasure this part of me; whoever loves me loves me with this in it.
Kay Redfield Jamison
#15. High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
Christopher Hitchens
#16. I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs.
Salman Rushdie
#17. I had to audition for the part of Jnior, and I wanted the role terribly because I knew it was a great character. This guy is a wonderful, funny, mean old guy.
Dominic Chianese
#18. Everyone loves the seventies because that's when movies were character-based, and you saw great characters and you saw very interesting filmmaking. There are interesting movies being made now, but it's harder and harder to make them.
Justin Bartha
#19. There never has been a great and beautiful character, which has not become so by filling well the ordinary and smaller offices appointed of God.
Horace Bushnell
#20. For any actor, it's a great privilege to play a character that is very distant from yourself.
James Norton
#21. At the wondrous moment you were born, as you took your first breath, a great celebration was held in the heavens and twelve magnificent gifts were granted to you.
Charlene Costanzo
#22. It was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do.
Freddie Highmore
#23. It was new to play a woman who plays with her sincerity, and who is a seductress, a manipulator and a liar! I was able to compose a character as opposed to being very natural, so it was very interesting for me. It was great to realise that I could be this kind of real woman!
Audrey Tautou
#24. I've just looked for ideas and great characters that I relate to and that I think I can offer something to the audience, and I no longer look at them as experiments or genre exercises at all.
Ron Howard
#26. The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing them towards him as the loadstone draws iron.
Samuel Smiles
#27. I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then.
Julia Stiles
#28. It was a great joy for me to develop a strong female character in the spirit of an Icelandic woman. Icelandic women tend to be very strong and very independent, and I think that came in very handy.
Anita Briem
#29. Woody Allen - nobody has been a better joke teller than him - and even in his great films, it's always coming out of the character. If you don't have that, jokes are just empty and I think that people rely too much on jokes.
Brett Gelman
#30. I think all writers are armchair psychologists to some degree or another, and I think a character's sexuality is fascinating. It's a great way to really get at the root of their identity, because it's such a personal thing.
Alan Ball
#31. Is as if the music is another character or as if it was a part of this great opera. I also through about this project as a structure or as a sculpture made out of colors, rhythm, characters, and brush strokes, but with every single one of these always supporting one another.
Alex Abreu
#32. My mom always tells me that ... Nobody is going to remember you for the great basketball player you are but they will remember you for the character you have off the court and how many lives you're changed.
Isaiah Austin
#33. They have had great disputes among themselves, whether one chosen by them to be a priest would not be thereby qualified to do all the things that belong to that character, even though he had no authority derived from the Pope,
Thomas More
#34. As a writer, it's a great narrative tool to have that character who is slightly detached but at the same time observant of his reality, because I think that's pretty much what being a writer is - being there, watching and internalizing.
Dinaw Mengestu
#35. Style is a display of character. It's also a great way to express yourself and the ladies like it.
Trey Songz
#36. The notion of this universe, its heavens, hells, and everything within it, as a great dream dreamed by a single being in which all the dream characters are dreaming too, has in India enchanted and shaped the entire civilization.
Joseph Campbell
#37. For me, if the writing and - by extension - the subject matter and the characters are all good, it doesn't matter if it's film or TV. Each medium has great things going for it.
Adam Croasdell
#38. Nietzsche himself was a great moralist; his writings abound with value judgments about individuals, character types, modes of thinking, and national traits. It is as if he develops immoralist psychology in order to tame his own nature, to keep his own greatest vice in check.
John Carroll
#39. There aren't as many roles, and I think there's a lack of openness in casting an Asian character in a leading role or unless they're a stereotype. It's been hard. I've been able to play some non-stereotypical roles, which is great, but I have a lot of Asian actor friends who are struggling.
Kimiko Glenn
#40. I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.
Amanda Burton
#41. Character - We describe the character of a person in reference to moral judgments about the worthiness of a person. Thus, to have a strong, great or honorable character is to be a person of merit, worthy of admiration and honor.
Michael Josephson
#42. The great thing about writing is that you always put yourself in the shoes of the character. If you're doing it right, you can see into the heart of all your characters. Usually, when there's a writing problem, it's because you aren't doing that.
Peter Gould
#43. You learn by playing a great team, and I'm talking about character things, not hockey technique.
Paul Coffey
#44. Great men are strong men with great leadership qualities. They inspire others to be loving and caring like themselves. By this their character is made stronger.
Ellen J. Barrier
#45. Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.
Samuel Johnson
#46. Great, now I've turned into a manga character who repeated everything everyone said.
Ilona Andrews
#47. One thing that's great about being a character actor is that a movie doesn't rest on your shoulders. If it bombs, it won't hurt my career.
Joe Pantoliano
#48. It has always seemed to me that any man is a better man for being a hunter. This sport confers a certain constant alertness, and develops a certain ruggedness of character ... Moreover, it allies us to the pioneer past. In a deep sense, this great land of ours was won for us by hunters.
Archibald Rutledge
#49. Our people are slow to learn the wisdom of sending character instead of talent to Congress. Again and again they have sent a man of great acuteness, a fine scholar, a fine forensic orator, and some master of the brawls has crunched him up in his hands like a bit of paper.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#50. Great acting is being able to create a character. Great character is being able to be yourself.
John Leguizamo
#51. That's the great thing about the 'Sin City' movies. Each little slot is incredibly meaningful, and each character has their own moment.
Juno Temple
#52. When I connect to my soul, project it into another # character , and then bring it to the stage or to a film
that has always been for me the great joy of # acting . It's been as if my soul kind of leaps out of my body and is able to be free and dance around.
Kyra Sedgwick
#53. Dr. McDreamy, that's what I call Patrick's character. He's gorgeous, he's got a great body and he's got damn fine hair.
Ellen Pompeo
#54. Character is the direct result of mental attitude. I believe that character is higher than the intellect. I believe that leadership is in sacrifice, in self-denial, in humility and in the perfectly disciplined will. This is the distinction between great and little men.
Vince Lombardi
#55. I think Ryan Gosling is a really great actor who's meticulous about his work. And I'd love to have the guts that Johnny Depp has to actually go outside the box on a character. When he plays a character, he plays it in a way that nobody else would.
Ashton Kutcher
#56. Everyone has, inside himself ... what shall I call it? A piece of good news! Everyone is ... a very great, very important character.
Ugo Betti
#57. I'm a huge fan of good, procedural-type shows on television ... there are a lot of roles for women. But there aren't a lot of great network television roles for girls that will let you start a character in one place and finish up with her in a totally different one.
Rachael Taylor
#58. We had the great good fortune and shortcomings of character that marked every generation that had never seen war.
Joshua Ferris
#59. Giving style to one's character - a great and rare art! It is exercised by those who see all the strengths and weaknesses of their own natures and then comprehend them in an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason and even weakness delights the eye.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#60. The sea has been called deceitful and treacherous, but there lies in this trait only the character of a great natural power, which, to speak according to our own feelings, renews its strength, and, without reference to joy or sorrow, follows eternal laws which are imposed by a higher Power.
Wilhelm Von Humboldt
#61. In every great novel, who is the hero all the time? Not any of the characters, but some unnamed and nameless flame behind them all.
D.H. Lawrence
#62. In the appointments to the great offices of the government, my aim has been to combine geographical situation, and sometimes other considerations, with abilities and fitness of known characters.
George Washington
#63. I am someone who has a cold heart. If I am beside a great grief I throw barriers up so the loss cannot go too deep or too far. There is a wall instantly in place, and it will not fall.
Michael Ondaatje
#64. Jesus wasn't just a great character, a hero figure for subsequent generations to look up to. He was announcing good news - something that was happening and has now happened, something that changes the world. And either he was right or he was wrong.
N. T. Wright
#65. The only thing that makes me put down a book is if the characters are boring, or the situations aren't fraught with the potential for some great change or I don't mind if an author torments his protagonist, but I do expect a decent payoff in the end.
Michael Boatman
#66. So if you want to have a great video game-based movie you have to keep the mood of the game, use the normal character setup - but you have to flesh out the story and provide more background for the characters.
Uwe Boll
#67. I've got all these great broads in me, all these character women. I was playing a torn-down stripper at twenty-five on Broadway, and now I fit the shoes.
Faith Prince
#68. Right here and now the great work of character-building is to be done, and whoever neglects present opportunities, looking forward to a future heaven for better conditions, is pulling right away from the kingdom of heaven within himself.
Charles Fillmore
#69. Good actors, especially when they know their character, will come in and either tell you in advance that they have an idea, or in the middle of the rehearsal or the scene they'll let it loose and you go, 'Ah that's great.'
Denis Leary
#70. I think so, Silence of the Lambs was a great, suspenseful thriller and I would expect Red Dragon to be similar. And I think it's very character driven.
Emily Watson
#71. God takes great delight in surprising His people with His goodness. He delights in being there for us, in coming through for us. He loves to give us the good gifts of His provision and grace that reveal to us His nature and His character.
John Paul Jackson
#72. Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#73. When you make a mistake. You can do a little song and dance, put on a little show and have everyone laugh it off.
Or you can own it, and next time show everyone how great you are. While silencing your critiques.
Personally speaking... I don't help no one make a fool out of you.
Vincent Edwards
#74. Defeats and failures are great developers of character. They have made the giants of our race by giving Titanic muscles, brawny sinews, and far-reaching intellects.
Orison Swett Marden
#75. We're all the heroes of our own stories. So, when I am inside the head of a character who would otherwise be considered a villain, I have a great deal of affection for that character and I'm trying to see the world and the events through their eyes.
George R R Martin
#76. A great character needs trials to overcome - experiences to give them depth, to make them vulnerable, relatable, and likable. Good characters need hardships to make them strong. The idea makes sense, but it still sucks if you're the heroine.
Kelly Oram
#77. Anytime you get a chance to play some extreme character, in any direction, it's always a great blessing.
Billy Bob Thornton
#78. Great occasions often stimulate a person to do something great, but that tells nothing of his or her real character. Great is the person who does good always, in sickness and in health, in riches and in poverty.
Abhijit Naskar
#79. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering. She
William Goldman
#80. Sometimes great power brings out the worst in us, and unfortunately, it isn't until people are given it that we see the true shades of their character.
Barbara Kloss
#81. It is not for nothing that Skaldin in one part of his book quotes Adam Smith: we have seen that both his views and the character of his arguments in many respects repeat the theses of that
great ideologist of the progressive bourgeoisie.
Vladimir Lenin
#82. Whenever I've done a sketch in which I'm asked to play a mom, my brain goes to Minnesota. It makes the character seem matronly, warm, the kind of person that takes care of you and brings you Campbell's soup when you're sick. It's a great shortcut.
Allison Tolman
#83. A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great. ... Absorb, absorb, absorb. That is the secret of the tree.
Ming-Dao Deng
#84. A great and frequent error in our judgment of human nature is to suppose that those sentiments and feelings have no existence, which may be only for a time concealed. The precious metals are not found at the surface of the earth, except in sandy places.
Arthur Helps
#85. Whats great about Freddy in this is when he gets to comment and manipulate the back stories and the fears of the characters - especially with Jason.
Robert Englund
#86. The virtues of character, behavioural patterns determine how great a nation and people are.
Sunday Adelaja
#88. The degree of talent, the size of the gift, is immaterial. All artists must listen, but not all hear great symphonies, see wide canvasses, conceive complex, character-filled novels. No
matter, the creative act is the same, and it is an act of faith.
Madeleine L'Engle
#89. The American women are very pretty and have great simplicity of character, and the extreme neatness of their appearance is truly delightful: cleanliness is everywhere even more studiously attended to here than in England.
Marquis De Lafayette
#90. I do think that it's extremely important with this character show her assuming power with a great deal of grace, and find out how to do things she won't like - the things she's called upon to do.
Mary McDonnell
#91. What appealed to me about 'The Loved Ones' script was that it had this really theatrical element to it. I thought that the scope of this character is so broad, and there is so much fun to be had playing a crazy teenage loner. It was a great way to explore the delusions a mind can create.
Robin McLeavy
#92. You know, when you're in your twenties you use a great deal of symbolism. You somehow think that a character standing beneath a cross is more interesting than a character standing underneath a billboard, but when you get a little older you realize that there's not much difference.
Paul Schrader
#93. so powerful is the influence of a truly great character on all that surrounds it.
Alexandre Dumas
#94. Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars.
Orison Swett Marden
#95. The excitement for me lies not so much in interviewing the hard-to-get famous person, but the person whom you are about to discover. You know, like maybe the character actors who are just coming into their own and you're realizing how great they are.
Terry Gross
#96. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and pale and thin, with long, sandy hair and rimless glasses, dressed in brown polyester pants, cheap brown shoes, and a light tan shirt. He looked like someone had put a wig on a giraffe and run it through the local Target.
John Connolly
#97. A great man need not be virtuous, nor his opinions right, but he must have a firm mind, a distinctive luminous character.
George Santayana
#98. Beautifully drawn, solid, compelling characters against a background so real and scary I left the lights on all night. It was great!
P.N. Elrod
#99. I said, 'Wouldn't it be great if Matt Damon's character fell in love with a girl with a real butt?' They were like, 'Yeah sure, sure - here's your personal trainer.'
Franka Potente
#100. I have learned a great deal in my life, and DeMolay helped me to learn that character and integrity should be cornerstones in your life. As a Senior DeMolay, as a father, the best advice I could ever give would be to take the high road in life, and you will be able to build trusting relationships.
Larry Wilcox
