Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Seneca

Best Quotes about Character

Character is the sum and total of a person's choices.

Fitzwater, P. B.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

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

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

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

Baldwin, Faith

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

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

Character is another thing that is formed in youth and reformed in marriage.

12.

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

13.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

14.

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

15.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

16.

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

Joan Didion

17.

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

18.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

19.

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

20.

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

Proverb, Chinese

21.

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

Voltaire

22.

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse.

Proverb

23.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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

Bible

25.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

26.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.

Hay, Colin

28.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

Royal, Darrell

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Solon

37.

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

38.

To succeed is nothing, it's an accident. but to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.

Marie Leneru

39.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

40.

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.

41.

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

Collins, Marva

42.

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.

43.

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

Thackeray, William M.

44.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

45.

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

Freeman, Robert

46.

A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life.

Strindberg, J. August

47.

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

48.

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

Aristotle

49.

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.

50.

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

Taylor, Bayard