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

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

James A. Froude

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

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Pandita, Saskya

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

Petrarch, Francesco

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

Frankfurter, Felix

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

Lippmann, Walter

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

Crisp, Quentin

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: initiative, imagination, individuality, and independence.

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

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

10.

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

11.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

12.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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.

14.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

15.

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

16.

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

17.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

18.

Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.

Freeman, Robert

19.

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

20.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

21.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

Gaulle, Charles De

22.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

23.

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

Thurber, James

24.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

25.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

26.

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

27.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

28.

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

Confucius

29.

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

Proverb, Chinese

30.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

31.

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

32.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

33.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

34.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

35.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

36.

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

37.

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

Joan Didion

38.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

39.

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

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

40.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Marie Leneru

46.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

47.

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

Hay, Colin

48.

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

49.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

50.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David