Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Best Quotes about Character

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

Thoreau, Henry David

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

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

Taylor, Bayard

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

Michener, James A.

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

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

Richter, Jean Paul

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

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

James, William

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

10.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

11.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

12.

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

13.

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

Hermann Hesse

14.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

15.

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

16.

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

Gill, Vince

17.

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

18.

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

Brown, Les

19.

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

James A. Froude

20.

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

21.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

22.

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity.

23.

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

24.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

25.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

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.

27.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

28.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

29.

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

30.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Crisp, Quentin

36.

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Landers, Ann

37.

Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.

Frankfurter, Felix

38.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

43.

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

44.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

49.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

50.

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

Proverb