Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Elihu Burritt

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Lippmann, Walter

Football doesn't build character. It eliminates weak ones.

Royal, Darrell

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

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Hall, Manly

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.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

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

Brown, Les

10.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

11.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

12.

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.

13.

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

Horace

14.

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

Proverb

15.

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

16.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

17.

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

18.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Chesterfield, Lord

19.

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.

20.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

21.

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

Proverb

22.

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

Proverb, Chinese

23.

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

Euripides

24.

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

Dyke, Henry Van

25.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

26.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

27.

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

28.

Character is another thing that is formed in youth and reformed in marriage.

29.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

30.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Leneru, Marie

34.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

35.

In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.

Francis Thompson

36.

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

Thomas, John M.

37.

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

Baldwin, Faith

38.

The lord will not hold back the promises, even if the person who makes them is not worthy.

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.

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Crisp, Quentin

41.

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

Voltaire

42.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

Joan Didion

44.

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.

45.

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

46.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

47.

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

48.

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.

49.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

50.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon