Motivational Quotes

Character

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

- Angelou, Maya

Best Quotes about Character

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

Dyke, Henry Van

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Cicero, Marcus T.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece-by thought, choice, courage and determination.

Luther, John

It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

Cicero

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Lincoln, Abraham

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self respect springs.

Joan Didion

10.

Character is the sum and total of a person's choices.

Fitzwater, P. B.

11.

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

Thomas, Isiah

12.

Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.

Elihu Burritt

13.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

14.

Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

15.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

16.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

Keller, Helen

17.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

19.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

20.

My father told me that if you saw a man in a Rolls Royce you could be sure he was not a gentleman unless he was the chauffeur.

Arran, Earl of

21.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

22.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

23.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

24.

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

25.

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Forster, Edward M.

26.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

27.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

28.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and averaging them -- we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support -- it is worse than a large family -- he is the silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

29.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

30.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

31.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

32.

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm... you can not buy loyalty. You can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.

Francis, Clarence

33.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

34.

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse.

Proverb

35.

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

36.

That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

37.

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

George Santayana

38.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

39.

Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.

Akhenaton

40.

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

41.

There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.

Hay, Colin

42.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

James, William

43.

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

44.

The lord will not hold back the promises, even if the person who makes them is not worthy.

45.

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

Beecher, Henry Ward

46.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Hermann Hesse

47.

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

49.

Character is like the foundation of a house -- it is below the surface.