Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Seneca

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Reagan, Ronald

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Cicero, Marcus T.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

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

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

Karr, Alphonse

10.

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

Collins, Marva

11.

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

12.

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

13.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

14.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

15.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

16.

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

Leneru, Marie

17.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

18.

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

19.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

24.

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

25.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

26.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

28.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

29.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

30.

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

Lippmann, Walter

31.

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

Elihu Burritt

32.

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

33.

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

Guideposts

34.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

35.

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

Merikare

36.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

37.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

39.

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

Horace

40.

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

41.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

42.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

43.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Shakespeare, William

44.

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.

Chambers, Oswald

45.

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

Proverb, Chinese

46.

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

47.

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

Proverb

48.

Character is like the foundation of a house -- it is below the surface.

49.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

50.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant