Motivational Quotes

Character

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.

Best Quotes about Character

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

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.

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

Thomas, John M.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Covey, Stephen R.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

Gaulle, Charles De

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Pandita, Saskya

Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

Merikare

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

James, William

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

10.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

11.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character

Covey, Stephen R.

12.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

Carlyle, Thomas

13.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

14.

Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow and the force of it depends on the strength of the arm from which it was shot. Argument is like a bullet fired from a gun and has equal force even when issued from a child.

15.

Good character is like a rubber ball -- thrown down hard -- it bounces right back. Good reputation is like a crystal ball -- thrown for gain -- shattered and cracked.

Linall Jr. A. L.

16.

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

17.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Churchill, Winston

19.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

20.

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln

21.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

22.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards, himself his own dungeon.

Pandita, Saskya

23.

Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.

Frankfurter, Felix

24.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

25.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

26.

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.

Maritain, Jacques

27.

You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

28.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

29.

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

30.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

31.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

32.

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

33.

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Crisp, Quentin

34.

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

35.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

36.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

37.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

Voltaire

38.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Shakespeare, William

39.

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.

Boardman, George D.

40.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Hall, Manly

41.

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

42.

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity.

43.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

44.

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

45.

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

46.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca

47.

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.

48.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

Richter, Jean Paul

49.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou

Akhenaton

50.

A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life.

Strindberg, J. August