Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Disraeli, Benjamin

Best Quotes about Character

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

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

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

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.

William Carleton

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

Petrarch, Francesco

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

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

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

12.

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Trotsky, Leon

13.

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

Brown, Les

14.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

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.

16.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

17.

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

18.

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

19.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

20.

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

21.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

22.

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

Estrange, L.

23.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

24.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

25.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

26.

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

27.

The higher character a person supports the more they should regard their smallest actions.

28.

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

29.

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

30.

Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace.

Buddha

31.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

36.

I would rather be adorned by beauty of character than jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, while character comes from within.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

37.

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

Proverb

38.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

39.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.

Elihu Burritt

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.

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

45.

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.

46.

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.

Chambers, Oswald

47.

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

Euripides

48.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

49.

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