Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Maritain, Jacques

Best Quotes about Character

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.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Forster, Edward M.

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

Brown, Les

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.

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

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

Lippmann, Walter

10.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Angelou, Maya

11.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

12.

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

13.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

14.

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

Euripides

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou

Akhenaton

19.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

20.

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

Chambers, Oswald

21.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

22.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

23.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Thoreau, Henry David

24.

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

25.

In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.

Francis Thompson

26.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

27.

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

28.

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

29.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

30.

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

Leneru, Marie

31.

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

Joan Didion

32.

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

Bible

33.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Confucius

34.

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.

35.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

36.

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

37.

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

Thomas, John M.

38.

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

39.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

40.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Covey, Stephen R.

41.

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

42.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

43.

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

44.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

45.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

46.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

47.

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

48.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

49.

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.

50.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold