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'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

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

Look, we're all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house --in the bedroom he's asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he's rolling around with some bareass girl, in the library he's paying his taxes, in the yard he's raising tomatoes, and in the cellar he's making a bomb to blow it all up.

Miller, Arthur

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.

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

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

Hermann Hesse

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

10.

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

Drummond, Henry

11.

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

Voltaire

12.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

13.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

14.

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

15.

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.

Elmer G. Letterman

16.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

17.

Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.

Lippmann, Walter

18.

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

19.

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

Joan Didion

20.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Confucius

21.

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.

22.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Disraeli, Benjamin

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

28.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

29.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

30.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

31.

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

32.

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

Solon

33.

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

Hay, Colin

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Thurber, James

37.

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character in a child.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

38.

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.

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.

Bisset, Jacqueline

43.

Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give. When to this truth you awaken, then you begin to live.

Taylor, Bayard

44.

Nothing marks the character of a young man more than failure.

45.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

46.

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.

47.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

48.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

49.

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

50.

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