Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Horace

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

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

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

Howell, Harry

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

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

Proverb

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

Elihu Burritt

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

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

10.

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

Greeley, Horace

11.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

12.

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

13.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

14.

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

15.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

16.

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

Thackeray, William M.

17.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

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

19.

Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.

Freeman, Robert

20.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

21.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

22.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

23.

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

24.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

25.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

26.

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.

27.

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

28.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

29.

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

30.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

31.

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

32.

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

Confucius

33.

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.

34.

It is better for the development of character and contentment to do certain things badly for yourself than to have them done better for you by someone else.

35.

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

36.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

Gaulle, Charles De

37.

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

Thurber, James

38.

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.

39.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

40.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

Lebowitz, Fran

41.

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.

Elmer G. Letterman

42.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

43.

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

Maritain, Jacques

44.

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

45.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

Maurois, Andre

46.

One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.

Estrange, L.

47.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius