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

There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.

Hay, Colin

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

Character is another thing that is formed in youth and reformed in marriage.

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

Thomas, John M.

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

Taylor, Bayard

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

10.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

11.

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

12.

Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.

Elihu Burritt

13.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

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

15.

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

Cicero

16.

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

17.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

18.

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

Thackeray, William M.

19.

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

Lippmann, Walter

20.

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

21.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

22.

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

23.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

24.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Wooden, John

25.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Shakespeare, William

26.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

27.

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

28.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

29.

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

30.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

31.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Cicero, Marcus T.

32.

It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

33.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

34.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

35.

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

36.

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

37.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

38.

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

39.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

40.

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

41.

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

James A. Froude

42.

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.

William Carleton

43.

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.

44.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

45.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

46.

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

Voltaire

47.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

48.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

49.

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

50.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch