Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Shakespeare, William

Best Quotes about Character

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Hall, Manly

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.

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

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.

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

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

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

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

10.

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

11.

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

Lippmann, Walter

12.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

13.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

14.

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

Taylor, Bayard

15.

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

16.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

17.

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

18.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

19.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

20.

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

21.

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

22.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Chesterfield, Lord

23.

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.

24.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

25.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

26.

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Crisp, Quentin

27.

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

28.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

29.

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

30.

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

Royal, Darrell

31.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

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

Freeman, Robert

33.

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

Voltaire

34.

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

Thurber, James

35.

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

36.

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

Greeley, Horace

37.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

James A. Froude

38.

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

39.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.