Motivational Quotes

Character

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

- Lincoln, Abraham

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

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

Maritain, Jacques

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

Guideposts

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

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

Michener, James A.

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

Gill, Vince

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.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

10.

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

Drummond, Henry

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Peter The Great

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

17.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

18.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

19.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

20.

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

21.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

22.

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

23.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

24.

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

25.

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

Shakespeare, William

26.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

27.

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

28.

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

29.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

30.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

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

Voltaire

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

36.

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

Hall, Manly

37.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

38.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

39.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

40.

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.

41.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

42.

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

James A. Froude

43.

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

Marie Leneru

44.

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

Brown, Les

45.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

46.

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

47.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

48.

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

Bible

49.

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

50.

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.