Khalil Gibran

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

- Khalil Gibran, artist, poet, writer

Evan Esar

"Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose."

- Evan Esar, humorist and author

James Anthony Froude

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

- James Anthony Froude, author, historian and magazine editor

Oscar Wilde

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.”

- Oscar Wilde, poet, novelist, dramatist and critic

Horace

"If you wish me to weep, you must mourn first yourself."

- Horace, lyric poet and satirist

Wendell Berry

"The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it."

- Wendell Berry, author, critic, academic

Noah Porter

"Remember that what you believe will depend very much on what you are."

- Noah Porter, philosopher, educator, clergyman

Abraham Lincoln

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

- Abraham Lincoln, former president of the USA

William Shakespeare

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."

- 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

"One may smile, and smile, and be a villain"

- 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

Tryon Edwards

"The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves--our weakness, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn from them all."

-Tryon Edwards, theologian

Helen Keller

"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."

- Helen Keller, author and activist

Francis Bacon

"In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior."

- Francis Bacon, philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, author

Cicero

"Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him."

- Cicero, ancient Roman orator, politician and author

Theodore Roosevelt

"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."

- Theodore Roosevelt, former president of the USA

J. K. Rowling

"It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

- J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets"

Abigail Van Buren

"Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place."

- Abigail Van Buren, advice columnist

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, philosopher and poet

Albert Camus

"When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter."

- Albert Camus, author, philosopher and journalist

George Washington Carver

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because some day in life you will have been all of these.”

– George Washington Carver, scientist, botanist, educator and inventor