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

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

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and averaging them -- we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support -- it is worse than a large family -- he is the silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

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

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

Freeman, Robert

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

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

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

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

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

12.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

13.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

Maurois, Andre

14.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

15.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

16.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

17.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

19.

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

20.

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

Lippmann, Walter

21.

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

Confucius

22.

Everyone has three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Karr, Alphonse

23.

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

Aristotle

24.

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

25.

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

Royal, Darrell

26.

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

27.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

28.

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

29.

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

30.

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

Buddha

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.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

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

Michener, James A.

36.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

37.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

41.

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

42.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

43.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver