Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

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

Hall, Manly

One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.

Estrange, L.

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

Marie Leneru

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

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

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

Greeley, Horace

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

Chesterfield, Lord

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

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 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

12.

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

13.

Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self respect springs.

Joan Didion

14.

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

Seneca

15.

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

16.

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

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.

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

Brown, Les

19.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

20.

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

Taylor, Bayard

21.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Confucius

22.

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

23.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

24.

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

25.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

26.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Marden, Orison Swett

27.

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.

Bisset, Jacqueline

28.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

29.

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

30.

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

Voltaire

31.

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

32.

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

Collins, Marva

33.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

34.

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.

35.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

36.

Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.

Akhenaton

37.

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

38.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

39.

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.

40.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

41.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

42.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

46.

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

47.

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

48.

While an original is always hard to find, he is easy to recognize.

Mason, John L.

49.

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

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

50.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Hepburn, Katharine