Motivational Quotes

Character

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.

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

Lubbock, Sir John

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

Lowell, James Russell

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

10.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

Brown, Les

12.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

13.

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

14.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Hermann Hesse

15.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

19.

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Proverb, Chinese

20.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

21.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Greeley, Horace

22.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Hepburn, Katharine

23.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

24.

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

25.

Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

Merikare

26.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.

Nathaniel Emmons

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

30.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

31.

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.

Maritain, Jacques

32.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

33.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

34.

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

Bible

35.

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.

36.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Horace

41.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

42.

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

Solon

43.

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

Howell, Harry

44.

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

Elihu Burritt

45.

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

46.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

47.

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

48.

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter either.

Thurber, James

49.

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

Seneca