Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Greeley, Horace

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

Elihu Burritt

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

Thurber, James

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

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

Proverb

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

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

Thoreau, Henry David

10.

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

11.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

12.

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

Estrange, L.

13.

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

James A. Froude

14.

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

Seneca

15.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

16.

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

Mason, John L.

17.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

18.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

19.

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

20.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Michener, James A.

21.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.

Nathaniel Emmons

22.

Everyone has three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Karr, Alphonse

23.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

24.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

25.

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

Crisp, Quentin

26.

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

27.

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

Thackeray, William M.

28.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

29.

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

30.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

32.

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

33.

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

Guideposts

34.

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.

35.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

36.

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

Lippmann, Walter

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

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

Shakespeare, William

40.

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

41.

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

Royal, Darrell

42.

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

43.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

44.

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

Voltaire

45.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

46.

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

47.

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

Bible

48.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

49.

It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, that counts.

Howell, Harry

50.

Character is like the foundation of a house -- it is below the surface.