Best Great Character Quotes

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

We are what we do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

I’m open to doing any kind of role and any kind of genre as long as it’s interesting and as long as I feel it could be a great character to play. I never take into my own personal opinions or my own public image into account when I chose movie roles.

As an actor, you’re constantly searching for that great character. Also, being a history buff and learning about people in our past and amazing things that they’ve done, I came across a book about Howard Hughes and he was set up as basically, the most multi-dimensional character I could ever come across. Often, people have tried to define him in biographies, but no one seems to be able to categorize him.

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

[Edward Snowden and his team] they’re great characters. They’re fascinating people. They were in an extraordinary situation.

I’m character-driven. If it’s a great character and something different; because I find that a lot of the times you do get pigeon-holed, you do get the same characters over and over again because that’s what producers are comfortable with. They’ve seen you do it, they know you can do it. I’m kind of getting a little stir crazy.

The history of all the great characters of the Bible is summed up in this one sentence: They acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced His will in all things.

Character is simply habit long continued.

As a reader I like both great characterization and fast moving plots. The challenge is to balance the both and not compromise one for the other.

I think it’s good to leave people with the memory of that being a great character. And if we have a reason to bring him back, we’ll bring him back.

We’ve lost a lot of coaches around here, but the philosophy and the approach, the standards we have set and the expectations we have maintained have always been upheld from one year to the next.I attribute that to the great character of the players and the willingness of the coaches to not get influenced and get off-message and to get out of the way.

There are great characters on television.

The best shows are always the ones that are very, very low-concept and just about great characters.

I’ve really enjoyed the independent film world. I’ve had a blast. But, the reality is that I really want to make bigger movies. If I could make movies that carry great characters and great performances and great pathos, and can have an explosion or two, that would be fine with me.

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.

I always think it’s really hard if you are Asian or Chinese to be really in Hollywood. There are not so many really great characters for you.

Funny to watch these Senators switching back and forth on Prohibition. Politics is a great character builder. You have to take a referendum to see what your convictions are for that day.

I think the most important technique is to ground everything, to make fantasy world grounded and relatable, just great characters.

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.

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.

[John Musker] got me reading the mythology and we very early on we worked up a basic storyline centered around the character of Maui. He just seemed like a great character to kind of build a movie around. He’s this mythic demi-god, bigger than life character. He pulled up islands with his magical fishhook. He slowed down the sun. He’s Pan Pacific.

In every soap, at the end of the season, relationships end and people leave the show. You look at characters and evaluate whether they’re great characters or not, and whether they have a future in the show. And we did all of that.