Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Karr, Alphonse

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

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

Proverb

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

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

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.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

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

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

10.

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

Voltaire

11.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

12.

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

Leneru, Marie

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Taylor, Bayard

17.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

18.

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.

19.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Bible

23.

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

24.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

25.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

26.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

27.

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.

28.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

33.

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

34.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

35.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

36.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

37.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

Lois McMaster Bujold

38.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

39.

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

Elihu Burritt

40.

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

Chambers, Oswald

41.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

42.

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

43.

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

44.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

45.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

46.

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

James A. Froude

47.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

48.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards, himself his own dungeon.

Pandita, Saskya

49.

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

Royal, Darrell

50.

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