"It may, however, be said that the level of experience to which concepts are inapplicable cannot yield any knowledge of a universal character, for concepts alone are capable of being socialized."

Character
🎨 Studio 2.0

Create & Download Shareable Quote Image

Export typography-grade cards optimized for Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok stories.

Free instant export. No watermark required.

Insight & Reflection

This reflection on character by Muhammad Iqbal resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in character is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Muhammad Iqbal

Sir Muhammad Iqbal was an Islamic philosopher and poet. His poetry in Urdu is considered among the greatest of the 20th century, and his vision of a cultural and political ideal for the Muslims of British India is widely regarded as having animated the impulse behind the Pakistan Movement. The honorific commonly refers to him as Allamah and is widely considered one of the most important and influential Muslim thinkers and Islamic religious philosophers of the 20th century.

More quotes by Muhammad Iqbal →
Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Muhammad Iqbal

"Another way of judging the value of a prophet's religious experience, therefore, would be to examine the type of manhood that he has created, and the cultural world that has sprung out of the spirit of his message."

Read more →

"The immediacy of mystic experience simply means that we know God just as we know other objects. God is not a mathematical entity or a system of concepts mutually related to one another and having no reference to experience."

Read more →

"Inductive reason, which alone makes man master of his environment, is an achievement and when once born it must be reinforced by inhibiting the growth of other modes of knowledge."

Read more →

More about Character

"If time is money, it seems moral to save time, above all one's own, and such parsimony is excused by consideration for others. One is straight-forward."

Read more →

"The test of character in leadership is how one behaves in moments of unvarnished power. Reflect upon this whenever doubt clouds your horizon — an essential principle for the reflective life."

Read more →

"A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide."

Read more →
View all Character quotes →