Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Schopenhauer, Arthur

Best Quotes about Character

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

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

Solon

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

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

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

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

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

Taylor, Bayard

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

Guideposts

10.

Everyone has three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Karr, Alphonse

11.

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.

12.

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.

13.

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

Merikare

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

17.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

18.

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Trotsky, Leon

19.

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.

20.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca

22.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

23.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

24.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

25.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

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

27.

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

Elihu Burritt

28.

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

Brown, Les

29.

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

Dyke, Henry Van

30.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

31.

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

32.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

33.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

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.

35.

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

Beecher, Henry Ward

36.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

37.

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm... you can not buy loyalty. You can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.

Francis, Clarence

38.

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

39.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

40.

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

Horace

41.

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

Greeley, Horace

42.

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

43.

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

Angelou, Maya

44.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

45.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

46.

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

47.

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

Buddha

48.

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

49.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

50.

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