Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Lubbock, Sir John

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Thoreau, Henry David

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.

Freeman, Robert

10.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

Lebowitz, Fran

11.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

12.

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

Collins, Marva

13.

One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.

Estrange, L.

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

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

Baldwin, Faith

17.

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter either.

Thurber, James

18.

One can easily judge the character of a person by the way they treat people who can do nothing for them.

Proverb

19.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

20.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

21.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

22.

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

23.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

25.

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

26.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

27.

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

28.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

29.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

30.

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.

31.

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

Marie Leneru

32.

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

Greeley, Horace

33.

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

34.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

36.

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

Jefferson, Thomas

37.

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.

38.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

39.

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

Michener, James A.

40.

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

41.

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

Euripides

42.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

Lois McMaster Bujold

43.

The man who cannot believe in himself cannot believe in anything else. The basis of all integrity and character is whatever faith we have in our own integrity.

Smith, Roy L.

44.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.

Nathaniel Emmons

45.

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.

46.

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

47.

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.

48.

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.

49.

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.

50.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline