Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Brown, Les

Best Quotes about Character

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

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

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

Hay, Colin

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Richter, Jean Paul

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

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

10.

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

Howell, Harry

11.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

12.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

King Jr. Martin Luther

13.

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

14.

The lord will not hold back the promises, even if the person who makes them is not worthy.

15.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

16.

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

Joan Didion

17.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

18.

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

19.

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

Maritain, Jacques

20.

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.

21.

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.

22.

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

23.

Everyone has three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Karr, Alphonse

24.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Hall, Manly

25.

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

Taylor, Bayard

26.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

27.

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

28.

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

Reagan, Ronald

29.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

30.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

Lois McMaster Bujold

31.

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

Crisp, Quentin

32.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

33.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Michener, James A.

34.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

35.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

36.

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.

37.

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

Euripides

38.

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

Seneca

39.

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

40.

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

Thurber, James

41.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

42.

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

43.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

44.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

45.

Character is the sum and total of a person's choices.

Fitzwater, P. B.

46.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

47.

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

48.

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

49.

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

50.

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