Motivational Quotes

Character

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

- Proverb, Chinese

Best Quotes about Character

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

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

Angelou, Maya

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

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

Maritain, Jacques

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

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

Elmer G. Letterman

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

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

Guideposts

10.

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

Thackeray, William M.

11.

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

12.

The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.

Confucius

13.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

14.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Collins, Marva

15.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

16.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

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.

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Landers, Ann

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Horace

22.

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

Bible

23.

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

Greeley, Horace

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

28.

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Proverb, Chinese

29.

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

30.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

32.

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

33.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

34.

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

Francis Thompson

35.

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

Solon

36.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

37.

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.

38.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

39.

For character too is a process and an unfolding... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

Eliot, George

40.

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

41.

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

Lippmann, Walter

42.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

43.

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

Brown, Les

44.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

45.

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

46.

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

Voltaire

47.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

48.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

King Jr. Martin Luther

49.

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.

Bisset, Jacqueline

50.

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