Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

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

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Solon

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

13.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

14.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

15.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

16.

Character is the sum and total of a person's choices.

Fitzwater, P. B.

17.

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

18.

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

Joan Didion

19.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

20.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

21.

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

22.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

23.

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

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

24.

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

Voltaire

25.

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

Euripides

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.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

28.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

29.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Angelou, Maya

30.

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

31.

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

32.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Hepburn, Katharine

33.

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

34.

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

Horace

35.

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

Proverb

36.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

37.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

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

39.

Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.

Freeman, Robert

40.

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

Lippmann, Walter

41.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Royal, Darrell

47.

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.

48.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

49.

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

Confucius

50.

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