Motivational Quotes

Character

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.

Best Quotes about Character

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]

Bible

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

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

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

Thoreau, Henry David

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

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

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

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

Richter, Jean Paul

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

10.

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

Solon

11.

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

Greeley, Horace

12.

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

Proverb

13.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

15.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

16.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

17.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

18.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

19.

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

20.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

21.

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

Taylor, Bayard

22.

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

23.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

24.

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

25.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

26.

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

Marie Leneru

27.

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

28.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

W. Somerset Maugham

29.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

30.

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: initiative, imagination, individuality, and independence.

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

31.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

32.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

36.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

37.

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

38.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

39.

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

40.

For character too is a process and an unfolding... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

Eliot, George

41.

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

Proverb

42.

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

James A. Froude

43.

The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.

Confucius

44.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

Horace

45.

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

46.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

47.

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

48.

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

Shakespeare, William

49.

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

50.

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

Guideposts