Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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.

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

Shakespeare, William

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

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

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

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.

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

Nothing marks the character of a young man more than failure.

10.

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Lubbock, Sir John

11.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

12.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

13.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

14.

Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow and the force of it depends on the strength of the arm from which it was shot. Argument is like a bullet fired from a gun and has equal force even when issued from a child.

15.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

16.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Francis Thompson

20.

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

21.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

22.

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

23.

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

Angelou, Maya

24.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Thoreau, Henry David

25.

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

Royal, Darrell

26.

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

Crisp, Quentin

27.

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.

Petrarch, Francesco

28.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

29.

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

Aristotle

30.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

34.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

Lowell, James Russell

35.

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Pandita, Saskya

36.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

37.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

38.

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

39.

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

Thurber, James