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

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

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

Thackeray, William M.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

James, William

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

George Santayana

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.

Maritain, Jacques

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

Petrarch, Francesco

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

Lippmann, Walter

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

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

10.

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

Thomas, Isiah

11.

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

Hall, Manly

12.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

13.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

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

15.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

16.

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

17.

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

Proverb, Chinese

18.

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

Bible

19.

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

20.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

21.

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

Guideposts

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Proverb

25.

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

Thurber, James

26.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

27.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

28.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Lincoln, Abraham

29.

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

30.

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

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

31.

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

Merikare

32.

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

33.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

34.

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.

35.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

36.

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

37.

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

Brown, Les

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

Euripides

41.

For character too is a process and an unfolding... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

Eliot, George

42.

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

43.

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

Marie Leneru

44.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

45.

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.

46.

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

Elihu Burritt

47.

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

48.

Thoreau, Henry David

49.

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.

50.

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius