Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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.

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

Proverb

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

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.

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

It is better for the development of character and contentment to do certain things badly for yourself than to have them done better for you by someone else.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

Collins, Marva

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

10.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

11.

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

Lippmann, Walter

12.

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

13.

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Forster, Edward M.

14.

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

Maritain, Jacques

15.

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

Francis Thompson

16.

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

Joan Didion

17.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

18.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

Richter, Jean Paul

19.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

20.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

21.

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

Royal, Darrell

22.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

23.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

24.

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

25.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

26.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm... you can not buy loyalty. You can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.

Francis, Clarence

28.

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

Leneru, Marie

29.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

30.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

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

32.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

33.

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.

34.

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.

35.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

36.

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

37.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

38.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

39.

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

40.

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

41.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

45.

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

46.

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

47.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

48.

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

Proverb, Chinese

49.

My father told me that if you saw a man in a Rolls Royce you could be sure he was not a gentleman unless he was the chauffeur.