Quotes / What You Are in the Dark

Anime and Manga

If you break the rules and let yourself off the hook even once, it'll become a habit! You might think you can break a habit, but you can't!

— Young Chiba to Young Naeko, Case Closed

She never gave up the hope even till the end
Only the sea knows

— Miiro, KanColle OP1

You say it was all a lie. But you still taught me how to swim.

— Denji, Chainsaw Man

Comic Books

Hey, I think I finally came up with an answer to your question - the one about "Soul?" You know at the end of the day, when you close the door and you're all alone... and you strip off your armor and lower your guard and peel away the mask... When there's nobody watching and nothing to hide... and you no longer need to be strong or clever or pretty or brave... There's just YOU. That's IT. That's the soul.

— Barbara, Batgirl (2000), issue 45

Bruce Banner: You don't fool me for a second, mister; I've got all your secrets right here.
Thor: And I have your secrets right here, Doctor Banner. Have you told Betty Ross that you cry yourself to sleep every night or are you too busy fantasizing about hurting the Pyms for stealing your old job?

— The Ultimates

So much gold... but it's bad luck to rob a corpse. I'd better get out of here. Too bad, We could have had quite a haul tonight. On the other hand, what does a dead doctor need with so much money? Maybe just a few coins won't be missed. (reaches for a pile of coins, but turns away) No. Even I have my limits! Too bad. It's so much gold. It looks like Kiyoko is going to stay hungry tonight.

— Kitsune, Usagi Yojimbo #161: The Body in The Library, part 1

Fan Works

This is it... this is the icing on my cake! A lifetime of physical and psychological abuse, brought to a swift and satisfying end! All I have to do... is nothing! I mean, this is just Darwinism at work! As long as I don't hand her this lifesaving juice that I am currently handing her-NOOOOOOOOO!!

— Kirito saves his abusive little sister from choking to death on a muffin, Sword Art Online Abridged

All I have to do now is fly away from here, and leave all this behind me. No more Virtual World, no more Seto, no more Father...the world is mine for the taking! I have...absolutely...no regrets about this...none...what have I done?

— Noah Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series

Film — Live-Action

History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.

— Lord John Whorfin, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Look, Ed, what I'm saying is it wouldn't make it all right if Barbara didn't know. I'd know, and I wouldn't like myself.

— Mitch, City Slickers, explaining why he could never cheat on his wife.

Principles only matter if you stick to them when it's inconvenient.

— Sen. Laine Billings Hanson, The Contender

"You could have ducked under the counter, but you didn't. You could have looked the other way, but you didn't. In fact, you were willing to put yourself in danger to save a perfect stranger. Seems to me you're just the kind of average Joe the world needs right now. You just don't know it yet."

— Eulalie Hicks to Jacob Kowalski, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

You know what, Matt? It's amazing what you can do... when you don't have to look at yourself in the mirror anymore.

— Sebastian Caine, Hollow Man

An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret!

— Griffin, The Invisible Man (1933)

"Reputation is what people think of you. Character is what you are."

— Duke of Oxford, The King's Man

Mbizi: Let me make him disappear, Mr. Valentine. Around here people disappear all the time.
Valentine: I can't do that.
Mbizi: (gestures to the empty African countryside) Look where we are. Who will know?
Valentine: We will.
Mbizi: (hesitates, then reluctantly moves his machete away from the arms dealer's neck)

— Lord of War

Harry: Come on, Lee. If they want to get killed, let 'em.
Chris: Go ahead, Lee. You don't owe anything to anybody.
Lee: Except to myself.

— The Magnificent Seven

Literature

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

— Gilbert, "The Critic as Artist" (1891), by Oscar Wilde

Nineteenth [Platoon] lasted seventeen minutes from the time the gates closed. They accounted for one-hundred and eighty nine enemy casualties. No one witnessed their heroism.

— Gaunt's Ghosts: Sabbat Martyr - About a group having a Dying Moment of Awesome

I can hide under the covers, luxuriate in my childhood bed, my childish notions, or I can face this head-on. My father always told me that a person is made up of all the little choices they make in life. The choices no one ever sees. I may not be in control of much, like who I marry, the children I’ll bear, but I have control over this moment. And I’m not going to waste it.

— Tierney James, The Grace Year

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

— Professor Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Bilbo almost stopped breathing, and went stiff himself. He was desperate. He must get away, out of this horrible darkness, while he had any strength left. He must fight. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him.
No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost.

— The Hobbit

I don't know how I'd face up to murder, but I'm sure of one thing. If I'd been in his shoes, I would have done exactly what Paul did in 1939. And I can only hope to God that I'd have acted the same in 1948.

Greg Parajian, John Putnam Thatcher: By Hook or by Crook

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

— Mother Night

"What you do when no one is guiding you determines who you are."

— Hei-Ran, The Rise of Kyoshi

"Ah," the Master of Fandom said, "so I guess this is when we find out who we really are." He paused for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't seem to be anyone in particular. Oh well."

— Three Worlds Collide

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.

— Aral Vorkosigan, Vorkosigan Saga: A Civil Campaign

This would be death I'd lead my friends to... Death, and what is right.

— Kaladin, The Way of Kings (2010)

I've walked into a warehouse and arrested a spicelord in his office. He opened a case and it had over a million credits in it. A million-more money than I'll ever see in my lifetime. It was mine he said, if I'd just took it and walk away. No one would ever know. But I'd know, and I didn't do it.

— Corran Horn, I, Jedi.

Golf, my dear fellow, is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well.

—The Oldest Member, "Ordeal by Golf", The Clicking of Cuthbert by P. G. Wodehouse

We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy - the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial -carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won.

— Justicar Alaric, Grey Knights by Ben Counter.

What I say to you is this, there is no telling what a human character is, until the test comes. To most of us the test comes early in life. A man is confronted quite soon with the necessity to stand on his own feet, to face dangers and difficulties and to take his own line of dealing with them. It may be the straight way, it may be the crooked way—whichever it is, a man usually learns early just what he is made of. But the Cloades had no opportunity of knowing their own weaknesses until the time they were suddenly shorn of protection and were forced, quite unprepared, to face difficulty. One thing, and one thing only, stood between them and the resumption of security, the life of Rosaleen Cloade. I am quite certain in my own mind that every single one of the Cloades thought at one time or another, 'If Rosaleen was to die—'

—Hercule Poirot, Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie

Live-Action TV

Dorien: Right, I'm going to ask you about Dorien.

Sharon: Yes.

Dorien: Now... think hard, and tell me truthfully what you really think of her.

Sharon: I think...

Dorien: Yes?

Sharon: I think she's... warm-hearted an'... an' gen'rous.

Dorien: Really?

Sharon: An' she's been a really good friend t'me and Tracey.

Dorien: Ooh.

Sharon: She can be a vain, snobby, stuck-up cow sometimes.

Dorien: Yes, thank you, Sharon.

Sharon: Bitchy, conniving.

Dorien: Yes, and you're a fat Cockney slut!

— Birds of a Feather, "Mind Over Matter"

Welcome to a future where our true reflection is only revealed once the screen goes dark. Welcome to the darkness. I hope you find it enlightening.

— Black Mirror, "Welcome to the Darkness" promo

If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values - they're hobbies.

— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Billis: Sir, with regret, I'm going to have to lower my gun.
Droxil: Why?
Billis: She is a crying, unarmed, female civilian. I'm thinking of the visual.
Droxil: Nobody's looking!
Billis: Doesn't mean there's no visual.

— Doctor Who, "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe"

Only in darkness are we revealed.... Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit - without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis.

— Nardole quoting River Song, Doctor Who, "Extremis"

Martin: Oh, for God's sakes, nobody's even gonna know!
Frasier: Yes, but that's the point! Ethics are what you do when nobody else is looking. For heaven's sake, I learned that from you!

— Frasier, "To Tell The Truth"

We all do our duty when there's no cost to it. Honor comes easy then. But sooner or later, in every man's life, there comes a day when it is not easy. A day when he must choose.

— Maester Aemon, Game of Thrones

I spend a lot of time moving around people's homes, their bedrooms. You get to know people if you see them when they think they're alone. You see them for what they truly are: selfish, deceitful... and gassy.

— Claude, Heroes

Commander William T. Riker: What do we do, sir? With them monitoring every move, every word...
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: S.O.P., Mr. Riker.
Riker: Standard Operating Procedures?
Picard: We do exactly what we'd do if this "Q" never existed. If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are.

— Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint"

Tuvok: If the Doctor uses knowledge that Moset gained through his experiments, we would be validating his methods, inviting further unethical research.
Chakotay: We'd be setting a terrible precedent.
Paris: We're in the middle of the Delta Quadrant. Who would know?
Tuvok: We would know.

— Star Trek: Voyager, "Nothing Human"

Tenavik: You may still choose to walk away from this future. But if you take the crystal, your fate will be sealed forever. There will be no escaping it.
Pike: You're a Starfleet Captain. You believe in service, sacrifice, compassion, and love. (to Tenavik) No. I'm not going to abandon the things that make me who I am because of a future... that contains an ending I... I hadn't foreseen for myself. No. Give it to me.
Tenavik: I honor you, Captain.

— Star Trek: Discovery, "Through the Valley of Shadows"

Tabletop Games

The measure of true glory is not to give battle in the bright noon of war, surrounded by brave comrades upon the field of victory, but to valiantly fight on alone in the darkness, with no hope of aid or even remembrance, and to spit defiance in midnight's eye.

— Lion El'Jonson, Warhammer 40,000

Theater

I'll never be a hero all the citizens adore.

But if I hide to save my life, what has my life been for?!

— Ja'far, Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier

Video Games

Good deed's like pissing yourself in dark pants. Warm feeling, but no one notices.

— Jacob, Mass Effect 2

The truth of a man is found in the darkness, beneath the surface. Some light might reveal only what some men want to be seen.
...
Only the way a man is when he is hidden, is how he is. A shallow glimpse can deceive. Look deep, ponder, and recognize all that is hidden.

— Yeesha quoting the Prophecies of Oorpah, Uru

Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just.

— Takayuki Yagami, Judgment

Despite everything, it's still you.

—Undertale

Webcomics

You are who you are on your very worst day, Durkon. Anything less is a comforting lie you tell yourself to numb the pain.

— The High Priest of Hel, The Order of the Stick

Thar’s na much ta explain. Ye told me b’fore tha ye are who ye are on the worst day o’ yer life. An’ tha’s true. Tha’s 100% true. But ye know who else ye are? Ye are who ye are on tha next day. Tha day ye wake up an’ haf ta decide: are ye gonna make this tha new worst day o’ yer life, or na? An’ ye are who ye are the day after tha, which can also be yer new worst... or na. Ye are who ye are on all o’ yer days. All o’ em. Includin’ tha worst and th’ best. Ev’ry single one counts. All tha way ta tha end.

— Durkon in response to the above, The Order of the Stick

Integrity means doing what's right, even if nobody is looking.

— Rainman, The Whiteboard

Web Animation

Who will you see
There in the darkness?
When no one is watching
Who will you be?

— "Fear", RWBY

Web Original

When Nazi doctors were let loose during WWII, the incredible rate of their discoveries were matched only by the inadequacy of words to atone for them. They might have been monsters, but without them, we never would have discovered the yield elasticity of the elderly, or learned what part of a prisoner’s tongue detects the taste of angel meat. The Sims 3 is a computer game based on these Nazi scientists that offers us a world of moral ambiguity, free to perform psychological experiments away from the leering eye of ethics. Which is exactly what I did. Here are the results of my findings.

— Seanbaby, Exploring the Mysteries of the Mind with The Sims 3

CLIMB A MOUNTAIN
TELL NO ONE

— Courage Wolf

Western Animation

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

— Galactic Entity (possibly God), Futurama

"The question that once haunted my being has been answered. The future is not fixed, and my choices are my own. And yet, how ironic... for now I find I have no choice at all."

— Dinobot, Beast Wars, "Code of Hero"

Real Life

Someone who is nice to you but rude to their waiter is not a nice person.

— Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns 50

True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.

— Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

— Unknown

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

— Unknown

I have to tell you - this office, it’s about who you are and what you are, and it doesn't change after you occupy the office. It just magnifies it.

— Barack Obama, Remarks at a Campaign Rally for Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.

— J.C. Watts, Speech at the Republican National Convention 1996-08-13

Heaven knows, Earth knows, you know and I know.

— Yang Zhen coining a Chinese proverb, "Yang Zhen's Rejection of Gold"

Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.

— Proverb

True friends are easiest to see in the dark.

— Unknown

Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.

—Henry Ward Beecher, Life Thoughts

My dear, when people show you who they are, why don't you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times before you can see who they really are? Why can't you get it the first time?

— Maya Angelou. Paraphrased as "When people show you who they are, believe them." by Oprah Winfrey

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