Noble Character Quotes

It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.

I'm told there's a saying from those ancient times, kalos kai agathos, when someone or something is good and beautiful on the outside, but is also good and noble on the inside in terms of character and in terms of purpose. And I think that's a fine description of the friendship that exists between the Greek people and the American people.

A man without a heroic bent starts dying at the age of thirty.

A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed. Things could not go on in this manner.

The superior man... does not set his mind either for or against anything, he will pursue whatever is right. The superior man thinks of virtue, the common man of comfort.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

Of all the men I have ever met, he seems to combine greatness with goodness more than any.

It is better to be nobly remembered than nobly born.

Wisdom is the right application of knowledge; and true education...is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character.

That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.

What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no.

When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves.

An honest man here lies at rest, the friend of man the friend of truth the friend of age and guide of youth. Few hearts like his with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed. If there's another world, he lives in bliss. If there is none, he made the best of this.

The book, '12 Rules For Life,' is a very serious book. There's elements of humor in it, but I'm trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it's necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there's hell to pay if you don't do that.

The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.

The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.

Ah, my princess. Noble steed. How does the morning find you both?

The taste for splendor is hardly ever combined in the same souls with the taste for the honorable.

Weakness is more opposed to virtue than is vice.

Honor is an old-world thing; but it smells sweet to those in whose hand it is strong.

The happy man . . . will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way.