Motivational Quotes

Character

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

- Brown, Les

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

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

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

James A. Froude

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

Euripides

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

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

11.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

12.

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

13.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Collins, Marva

14.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

Lowell, James Russell

15.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

16.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

17.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

King Jr. Martin Luther

18.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Marden, Orison Swett

19.

I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.

James, William

20.

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

21.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

22.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

23.

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

24.

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

25.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

26.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

27.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Michener, James A.

28.

When God measures man, He puts the tape around his heart -- not his head.

Guideposts

29.

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

Hermann Hesse

30.

It is better for the development of character and contentment to do certain things badly for yourself than to have them done better for you by someone else.

31.

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

32.

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.

33.

He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Milton, John

34.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

35.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

36.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

37.

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.

38.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Greeley, Horace

39.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

Maurois, Andre

40.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

41.

To succeed is nothing -- it's an accident. But to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.

Leneru, Marie

42.

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

Wooden, John

43.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

44.

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

Buren, Abigail Van

45.

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.

Petrarch, Francesco

46.

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Proverb, Chinese

47.

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

Shakespeare, William

48.

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

49.

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

Peter The Great

50.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus