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

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

Taylor, Bayard

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.

Arran, Earl of

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

Leneru, Marie

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

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

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

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.

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

Estrange, L.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

10.

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

James A. Froude

11.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

12.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

16.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

17.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

18.

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

19.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

20.

It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

21.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

22.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

23.

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

Drummond, Henry

24.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Disraeli, Benjamin

25.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

26.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

27.

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

28.

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

Hermann Hesse

29.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

30.

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

31.

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.

32.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

33.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

34.

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

Confucius

35.

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

Royal, Darrell

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

Brown, Les

40.

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

41.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

42.

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

Freeman, Robert