You have been acquitted bya Limerick jury, and you may now leave the dock without any other stain upon your character.

-Adams,Judge Richard
Quoted in Maurice Healy  The Old Munster Circuit.

As the character is, such is the speech.

-Aelius Aristides
Pros Platona Peri Rhetorikes, bk.2,1.392.

   She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.

-Alcott, Louisa May
  Little Women, pt.2, ch.34.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

-Angelou, Maya originally MayaJohnson
  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, ch.34

We loved your play.We only have problems with your main character, the second act and the ending.

-Anonymous
  Fan's comment to playwright  Wendy Wasserstein on The Heidi Chronicles. Quoted in the NewYork Times, 24  Jan1991.

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying ina mean†it is a mean between twovices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.

-Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics, bk.2, ch.6,1006 (translated by Sir David Ross).

To live each day as though one's last, never flustered, neverapathetic, neverattitudinizingöhere isperfection of character.

-Aung San Suu Kyi
c.  AD 170^180  Meditations, bk.7, no.69 (translated by M Staniforth).

Idonot know whether itoughttobe so, butcertainlysilly things do cease to be silly if theyare done by sensible people in an impudent way.Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly. It depends upon the character of those who handle it.

-Austen,Jane
  Emma, ch.26.

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.

-Broun, (Matthew) Heywood Campbell
Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

I remember a table in BarchesterTowers that had more character than the combined heroes of three recent novels I've read.

-Broyard, Anatole
  Aroused by Books.

Byour skill in Mechanism, it has cometo pass, that in the management of external things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure mortal nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.

-Carlyle,Thomas
  Signs of the Times.

I should like to see the custom introduced of readers who are pleased with a book sending the author some small cash token† Not more than a hundred poundsöthat would be bad for my characterönot less than half a crownöthat would do no good to yours.

-Connolly, Cyril Vernon
  Enemies of Promise, ch.13.

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

-Connolly, Cyril Vernon
  The Unquiet Grave, pt.2.

His moral character†was full of promise, but of no performance.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^4  Of Mr Pecksniff. Martin Chuzzlewit, ch.5.

   L'homme est ne¤   pour la socie¤  te¤  ; se¤  parez-le, isolez-le, ses ide¤  es se de¤  suniront, son caracte'  re se tournera, mille affections ridicules s'e¤  le'  veront dans son coeur; des 274 pense¤  es extravagantes germeront dans son esprit, comme les ronces dans une terre sauvage. Man is born to live in society: separate him, isolate him, and his ideas disintegrate, his character changes, a thousand ridiculous affectations rise up in his heart; extreme thoughts take hold in his mind, like the brambles in a wild field.

-Diderot, Denis
  La Religieuse.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitute a man's critical actions, it will be better not to thinkourselves wise about his character.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Adam Bede, ch.29.

'Character'says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms,'character is destiny.'

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  The Mill on the Floss, bk.6, ch.6.

I have but one request to make at my departure from this world, it isöthe charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justicetomycharacter.Whenmycountry takesher place among thenations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

-Emmet, Robert
  Speech before being sentenced.

I hope I will be religious again but as for reganing my charecter I despare for it.

-Fleming, Marjory
  'Journal 2' in F Sidgwick (ed)  The Complete Marjory Fleming (1934).

Ulysses†is a dogged attempt to cover the universe with mud, an inverted Victorianism, an attempt to make crossness and dirt succeed where sweetness and light failed, a simplification of the human character in the interests of Hell.

-Forster, E(dward) M(organ)
  Of  James  Joyce's1922 novel.  Aspects of the Novel, ch.6.