Motivational Quotes

Character

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

- Abbott, Lyman

Best Quotes about Character

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Maritain, Jacques

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

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

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.

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

Character is a victory, not a gift.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

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

10.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

11.

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Trotsky, Leon

12.

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.

13.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

15.

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

16.

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

Howell, Harry

17.

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

Solon

18.

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

Hay, Colin

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.

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.

21.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Churchill, Winston

22.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

26.

He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Milton, John

27.

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.

28.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

29.

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

Guideposts

30.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

31.

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

Euripides

32.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

Horace

33.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

34.

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

Royal, Darrell

35.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

36.

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

Thackeray, William M.

37.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

38.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

39.

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

40.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

41.

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

42.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

43.

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

Taylor, Bayard

44.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Hermann Hesse

45.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

46.

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

47.

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

48.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character

Covey, Stephen R.

49.

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

50.

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