Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Crisp, Quentin

Best Quotes about Character

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.

James, William

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

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

Guideposts

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

Thurber, James

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

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

Richter, Jean Paul

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

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.

10.

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

11.

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

George Santayana

12.

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

13.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

Keller, Helen

14.

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

15.

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.

16.

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

Euripides

17.

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

18.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

19.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

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

21.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Shakespeare, William

22.

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

23.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

24.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

25.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

Carlyle, Thomas

26.

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

Marie Leneru

27.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

28.

Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.

Elihu Burritt

29.

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

30.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Hepburn, Katharine

31.

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

Royal, Darrell

32.

For character too is a process and an unfolding... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

Eliot, George

33.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]

Bible

34.

The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.

Confucius

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

Voltaire

38.

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