Motivational Quotes

Character

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

- Abraham Lincoln

Best Quotes about Character

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

James A. Froude

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Lubbock, Sir John

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.

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

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

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

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

Hay, Colin

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

10.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

11.

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

12.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

13.

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

14.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

15.

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

Confucius

16.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

17.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

18.

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

19.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

20.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

21.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

22.

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

23.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

29.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

30.

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

31.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

32.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

33.

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

34.

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

Seneca

35.

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

36.

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

Estrange, L.

37.

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

38.

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

Howell, Harry

39.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

40.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

41.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

42.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

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.

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

Maritain, Jacques

45.

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

46.

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

Solon

47.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

48.

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

Marie Leneru

49.

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