Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Taylor, Bayard

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

Proverb

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

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

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

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

Maritain, Jacques

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

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

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

10.

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

Guideposts

11.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

12.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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

14.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

15.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

16.

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

Joan Didion

17.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

18.

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

Elihu Burritt

19.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece-by thought, choice, courage and determination.

Luther, John

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.

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

22.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

23.

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

Greeley, Horace

24.

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

Confucius

25.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

26.

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

27.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

31.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

32.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

33.

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

Gill, Vince

34.

The lord will not hold back the promises, even if the person who makes them is not worthy.

35.

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

36.

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

37.

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

Buddha

38.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

39.

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

Lippmann, Walter

40.

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.

41.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Goldsmith, Oliver

42.

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.

43.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

44.

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

James A. Froude

45.

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

46.

It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.

Schopenhauer, Arthur