Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

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

Angelou, Maya

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character in a child.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Hermann Hesse

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

Elmer G. Letterman

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

Crisp, Quentin

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

Collins, Marva

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

Thackeray, William M.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character

Covey, Stephen R.

10.

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

11.

Thoreau, Henry David

12.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

13.

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

Thurber, James

14.

I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.

James, William

15.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

16.

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

17.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

18.

Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.

Frankfurter, Felix

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.

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.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

22.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

23.

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

Elihu Burritt

24.

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

25.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

26.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

Maurois, Andre

27.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou

Akhenaton

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Seneca

35.

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

Chambers, Oswald

36.

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

Hay, Colin

37.

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

Taylor, Bayard

38.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

42.

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

43.

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

Horace

44.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

Lebowitz, Fran

45.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

46.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.