User blog:Jiskran/Paring down to essentials

I was struck by how much Sean Renard is "The Slave of Duty" (to borrow the sub-title of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Pirates of Penzance'), and I wondered how far, reasonably, the other main characters might be summarised with single quotes. Here's what I came up with, and if you disagree, please feel free to say so in the comments. Better yet, offer an improved alternative.

Sean Renard – Necessitas dat legem non ipsa accipit. (Necessity gives law, it does not recognise law for itself) Publilius Syrus

Juliette – Was aus Liebe getan wird, gescheiht immer jenseits von Gut und Bose. (Whatever shall be done out of love, takes place beyond Good and Evil) Nietzsche

Rosalee - Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise. Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. - Kipling (The Female of the Species)

Monroe - A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hank - If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. - E.M. Forster

Eve - To understand is to perceive patterns. - Isaiah Berlin

Meisner - To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wu - We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. - Buddha

Adalind - No one for any considerable period can wear one face to themselves and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. - Nathaniel Hawthorne (made gender neutral)

Nick - Tho' much is taken, much abides; - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Ulysses)

Trubel - Yet there is the constant desire to find some point in the twisting, knotting, ravelling nets of space-time on which a metaphorical finger can be put to indicate that here, here, is the point where it all began... - Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)

I'm aware Emerson is in twice, but both quotes for me encapsulated their subjects. :) If the Wu quote offends anyone for being the only example of Oriental wisdom, my apologies in advance.