Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Lavater, Johann Kaspar

Best Quotes about Character

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

Euripides

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

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

Michener, James A.

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

Joan Didion

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

When God measures man, He puts the tape around his heart -- not his head.

Guideposts

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Pandita, Saskya

10.

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

11.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca

12.

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

16.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

17.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Horace

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

26.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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.

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

29.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

30.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

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

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

36.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

37.

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse.

Proverb

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Taylor, Bayard

41.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

42.

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

43.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

44.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

45.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

46.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

47.

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

Proverb

48.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

49.

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

Leneru, Marie

50.

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.