Atticus Finch

"There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you"

"You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family"

"Bad language is a stage all children go through"

"It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through"

"Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do"

"You see, as you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life"

"If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks"

"Empathy is not about saying I understand you"

"I wanted you to see what real courage is instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand"

"The boy is interested in everything"

"Simply because we are licked is no reason for us not to try"

"A mob's always made up of people, but then they ain't no longer people"

"You must never be frightened by what you hear in court"

"There are just some kind of men who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us"

"The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only"

"He had to take the stand and testify, and he did the best he could"

"This time we ain't fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our own"

"Cheating a colored man is ten times worse than cheating a white man"

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand."

"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us to try to win."

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

"As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, that white man is trash."

"Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view."

"I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through this without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb's usual disease."

"The simple hell of it is, we've got to make the best of things."

"Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through."

"Most people are nice, Scout, when you finally see them."

"There must be something else that burns up inside of them."

"The secret's in not losing your temper."