Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Character

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

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

Joan Didion

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Angelou, Maya

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

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Proverb, Chinese

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

Crisp, Quentin

10.

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

Hermann Hesse

11.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Solon

16.

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.

17.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

18.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

19.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

20.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

21.

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

Hall, Manly

22.

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

Horace

23.

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

Proverb

24.

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.

25.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

26.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

27.

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

28.

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

29.

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

Leneru, Marie

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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.

34.

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character in a child.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

35.

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

36.

It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, that counts.

Howell, Harry

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

40.

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

41.

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

Aristotle

42.

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter either.

Thurber, James

43.

While an original is always hard to find, he is easy to recognize.

Mason, John L.

44.

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.

45.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

46.

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

Buren, Abigail Van

47.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Goldsmith, Oliver

48.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

49.

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

50.

To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude. He who knows these three things

Confucius