Motivational Quotes

Character

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

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

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

Thurber, James

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

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

Brown, Les

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

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

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

James A. Froude

10.

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

11.

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.

Boardman, George D.

12.

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.

13.

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

Merikare

14.

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

Lippmann, Walter

15.

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

16.

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

Gill, Vince

17.

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

Shakespeare, William

18.

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

19.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

Carlyle, Thomas

21.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

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.

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

24.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

25.

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.

26.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

27.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

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

Hermann Hesse

29.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

30.

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

31.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

32.

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

33.

Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace.

Buddha

34.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

35.

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

Maritain, Jacques

36.

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

37.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Chesterfield, Lord

38.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

39.

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

Taylor, Bayard

40.

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

41.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

42.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

43.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

47.

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

George Santayana

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Royal, Darrell