Quotes you can build a character off of

[veti]

I just remembered one I read so long ago, and assimilated into my own thinking so much, I'd completely forgotten it was a quote. To me, it's the basis of all Lawful alignments:

"The means is the end." - Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed.

[Dorian Gray]

A large number of quotes from the same place:

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“I only want power so I can get books.”
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“There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky.

But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!”
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“World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation.”
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“Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them.”
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“I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction.”
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“I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution.”

And a different source:

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No, no, no. If anyone asks, you kicked their asses with butterflies.
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"Eh, I could take her."

[Rater202]

And a different source:

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No, no, no. If anyone asks, you kicked their asses with butterflies.
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"Eh, I could take her."

Where are these from?

[Qwertystop]

Where are these from?

Worm, a pretty good serial-novel, now completed. The latter was repeated many, many times, by a variety of people, and is mostly notable in how very wrong the speaker is every time in the end. Doesn't really have as much impact without that context.

The former works without context, and frankly giving enough context to give the idea of the original situation would spoil some fairly major mid/late plot.

[boomwolf]

From DoW, perfect for both a zealot and a mindbender:
"And open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded"




Don't remember the source, but this one sticks to me:
"There is no way you are going to survive that!"
"What makes you think I plan to survive?"

[Qwertystop]

"I did not come here to win. I came here to kill you. Death is lighter than a feather."

[Meronin]

I've found that most players in my group (me included) tend to have bard types who live by this:

I'll compose a ballad while I fight with you, and, as I end the refrain, thrust home

[ChaosArchon]

"First comes destruction. I bring nothing, I bless nothing, I save nothing, I just erase. Completely. Shatter. Collapse. Break and disappear!"

I'm currently trying to create a BBEG who will say this. It's just so ominous and dark that it sounds perfect for the villain of a campaign, probably an omnicidal maniac with a god complex or an eldritch abomination.

[Averis Vol]

"Through the gates of hell as we make our way to heaven through the Nazi lines....Primo victoria!" -Sabaton

"I'm not insane, that's how it seems though "Spiteful, cruel but wise beyond his age"" Blind guardian.

The former was used for a squad of redeemed death row inmates (The party) who converted to the gods of light for the their cruel pasts gave them the perfect tools to make them a special OP's group for their countries army, just replace "Nazi" with "Crotian".

The latter was a paladin with terrible charisma (yahoo serenity!) and a high wisdom, who had a terrible rude streak. He got a lot of flack for his impulsiveness and unwillingness to discuss plans. So he was seen as mad because he would charge someone halfway through a conversation because he had pinged his detect evil and found the real foe. When you caught him in his downtime though, he would speak for hours about the deeper aspects of philosophy.

[FabulousFizban]

Spoiler: quooootes

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There will come a time when you think everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

Hey tough guy, prepare to be loved!

I think it's awesome to be able to make people laugh.

I'm a person who gets better with practice. Getting older is awesome - because you get more practice.

I would love to go into an animal's dream - like a lion's or a cat's. I'm sure that's pretty awesome.

There are two types of Pain in this world: Pain that hurts you, and Pain that changes you!

Remember that guy that gave up? Neither does no one else.

[Vereshti]

Along with the quotes in my sig, here are some good ones:

"And thus, Cinderella won the science fair, became Supreme Ruler of the Kingdom, and, might I add, showed them, showed them all."
~Agatha Heterodyne

"There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness."
~Po, Kung Fu Panda

"Mr. Stark, may I remind you that some of us in this info-share collective have to spend copious amounts of time screening tech for dangerously vigilante-esque young men instead of letting them test it on their teammates? Our time is valuable."
~Lucius Fox, Roommates

[Reksew Trebla]

From Kingdom Hearts... I think... I've seen it used in relation to Kingdom Hearts a lot.

"The closer you get to light, the greater your shadow becomes."

And then there is that epic quote by Albert Wesker, which I'm too lazy to look up the full thing.

"The only thing that can defeat power is more power. That is the one constant in this universe. However, there is no point in power if it consumes itself. ..."

Both of those could make for interesting characters.

And of course, the greatest quote of them all, that you should always want to make a character based off of.

"I'm Batman."

[Teapot Salty]

Game of thrones is a gold mine. The house motto's: Hear, me, roar.
Ours is the fury.
Blood and Fire.
Duty, honor, family.

[Rion]

There's always been one quote that's fascinated me since I heard it first. It's a quote describing a historical person, ans such some contect can help, but I find the quote interesting on it's own even without context.

Context and larger quote:
The quote is by the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena who wrote a firsthand account of the First Crusade, and it's about one of its leaders, the Norman Bohemond de Hauteville, son of Robert Guiscard ("The Weasel"/"The Fox") de Hauteville.
The quote itself was part of a larger description of Bohemund, which (minus the smaller quote) is as follows:

Now [Bohemond] was such as, to put it briefly, had never before been seen in the land of the Romans [that is, Greeks], be he either of the barbarians or of the Greeks (for he was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying). Let me describe the barbarian's appearance more particularly -- he was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms. And in the whole build of the body he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned and, one might say, built in conformity with the canon of Polycleitus... His skin all over his body was very white, and in his face the white was tempered with red. His hair was yellowish, but did not hang down to his waist like that of the other barbarians; for the man was not inordinately vain of his hair, but had it cut short to the ears. Whether his beard was reddish, or any other colour I cannot say, for the razor had passed over it very closely and left a surface smoother than chalk... His blue eyes indicated both a high spirit and dignity; and his nose and nostrils breathed in the air freely; his chest corresponded to his nostrils and by his nostrils...the breadth of his chest. For by his nostrils nature had given free passage for the high spirit which bubbled up from his heart. A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible... He was so made in mind and body that both courage and passion reared their crests within him and both inclined to war. His wit was manifold and crafty and able to find a way of escape in every emergency. In conversation he was well informed, and the answers he gave were quite irrefutable.

The quote itself however, is much shorter. A single sentence in fact, where every word adds to the whole:

...even his laugh seemed like a threat to others.

Even without the larger quote describing the actual historical person above, the smaller quote can quite easily conjure up an image of what the man described could be like.

[Sam113097]

You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.

We are more than the parts that form us.

Only priests and fools are fearless and I've never been on the best of terms with the gods.

I won the only duel I ever lost

[veti]

If you, as a servant of your god, must use one hundred thousand warriors to destroy me, a solitary servant of my god, then you whisper to me: who will be remembered from this battle, your god or mine?

[Forrestfire]

One of the characters on my list of things to play is a mass-destruction blaster wizard inspired by "I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

[Winds]

An immortal? An archivist? A madman? A diviner?


"Knowledge is power...Imagine what I must know."

[genmoose]

I kept seeing "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." so I decided to adapt a few more from the same source to a fantasy setting:

“I come in peace. I didn't bring dragons. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f* with me, I’ll kill you all.”

“We’ve backed off in good faith to try and give you a chance to straighten this problem out. But I am going to beg with you for a minute. I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”

“Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in liberty, democracy, harmony, Taco Tuesdays, or whatever your campaign needs) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our people intact.”

[ChaosArchon]

I kept seeing "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." so I decided to adapt a few more from the same source to a fantasy setting:

“I come in peace. I didn't bring dragons. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f* with me, I’ll kill you all.”

“We’ve backed off in good faith to try and give you a chance to straighten this problem out. But I am going to beg with you for a minute. I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”

“Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in liberty, democracy, harmony, Taco Tuesdays, or whatever your campaign needs) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our people intact.”

I may steal the last quote for something for one of my future NPCs to say, so thanks

[rlc]

"...Every man's heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe a final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others, and makes them bleed deeper and something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized. By the storytellers, by the loyalty, by the memory of those who honor him and make the running the man did live forever."

[chainer1216]

" Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

I'm not a Dr. Who fan, but I stumbled onto this quote a couple weeks ago and I think itd fit a paladin whose been pushed to the point of falling.

[Cowardly Griffo]

I'm pretty sure this was from Super Robot Wars, although I don't remember the name of the character:

"You'll never get stronger by facing weak enemies."

It seems like the perfect quote for a recurring rival, or BBEG. Just someone who's out raising an army and conquering nations, setting out to break the world just to stir up someone who's capable of stopping them.

Oh, and along similar lines, just remembered this one from the main bad guy Cedric in the (otherwise largely mediocre) movie Arthur:

"Finally... a man worth killing."

" Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

I'm not a Dr. Who fan, but I stumbled onto this quote a couple weeks ago and I think itd fit a paladin whose been pushed to the point of falling.

I really do love that quote. Moffat's hit or miss, but when he hits, he hits pretty hard. It does suit a certain strain of paladin very well, as you say.

[Teapot Salty]

I found a few Great ones from Sparta:

Xerxes Messenger: "Deliver up your arms"
King Leonidas: "Come and take them."

'A slave's life is all you understand, you know nothing of freedom. For if you did, you would have encouraged us to fight on, not only with our spear, but with everything we have.'

Others arn't that good out of context, but you can find a gold mine here

[Bacchanalian]

Working on a Bard concept that could be considered based on this quote:

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." -Hunter S. Thompson

[ShadowFireLance]

"What, can you truly say I did wrong? When was it said that it is wrong for one to, speak his mind? When you spoke, I listened. When you commanded, I obeyed. And yet, you decide that I am worth no more of your time, your effort. You disown me, and cast me from your sight. Tell me now, Is it wrong for an angel to speak his mind?"

[shrandis]

"Whenever people see birds flying through the sky, it's said that they get the urge to go on a journey."

[Jay R]

I heard this in conversation today. (Don't ask.)

It's not a famous quote, but it certainly qualifies as a quote you can build a character off of.

"Fight. Kill. Camp. Claim."

[Qwertystop]

I heard this in conversation today. (Don't ask.)

It's not a famous quote, but it certainly qualifies as a quote you can build a character off of.

"Fight. Kill. Camp. Claim."

One of those new survival-exploration games, right? Can't remember the names.

[ChaosArchon]

"Will you let them steal your freedom? Channel the anger swelling inside you fighting the boundary 'til you break through. Deep in your soul their is no hesitation, make yourself the one they all fear. There is a wild fire inside you burning desire that you can't extinguish. Your crimson arrow rips through the twilight, this is the moment for war!"