Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Solon

A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life.

Strindberg, J. August

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

Elmer G. Letterman

Character is like the foundation of a house -- it is below the surface.

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

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

Richter, Jean Paul

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

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

Shakespeare, William

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Chesterfield, Lord

10.

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

Thomas, John M.

11.

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

Michener, James A.

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.

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

14.

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

15.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

Gaulle, Charles De

16.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

17.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

18.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

19.

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

20.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

21.

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

22.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

23.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

24.

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

25.

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

Maritain, Jacques

26.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

27.

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

28.

In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.

Francis Thompson

29.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

30.

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

Seneca

31.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

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

33.

One can easily judge the character of a person by the way they treat people who can do nothing for them.

Proverb

34.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

35.

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

Joan Didion

36.

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

37.

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

Taylor, Bayard

38.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

39.

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

Guideposts

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Freeman, Robert

43.

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

44.

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.

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

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

Hay, Colin

49.

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.