Characters are inherited by parents. But not all the characters are expressed. Some characters are recessive and they are suppressed by dominant genes.
E.g., In one of the Mendel's experiments when pure tall pea plants are crossed with pure dwarf pea plants in ${\mathit{F}}_1$ generation all tall pea plants are obtained. On selfing ${\mathit{F}}_1$ generation pea plants both tall and dwarf pea plants were obtained in ${\mathrm{F}}_2$ generation.