Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Joan Didion

Best Quotes about Character

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

Hall, Manly

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

Voltaire

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

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

Confucius

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

Aristotle

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

Lippmann, Walter

10.

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

Brown, Les

11.

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

12.

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

Howell, Harry

13.

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.

14.

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.

Elmer G. Letterman

15.

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

16.

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

Solon

17.

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

18.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

19.

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

20.

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

Royal, Darrell

21.

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

Peter The Great

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

25.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

26.

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

27.

Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow and the force of it depends on the strength of the arm from which it was shot. Argument is like a bullet fired from a gun and has equal force even when issued from a child.

28.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

29.

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

30.

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

Jefferson, Thomas

31.

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.

Chambers, Oswald

32.

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

Proverb

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Thackeray, William M.

37.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

38.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

39.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

40.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]

Bible

41.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

42.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

43.

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

44.

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

45.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Freeman, Robert

49.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

50.

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.