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

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

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

Proverb

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.

Frankfurter, Felix

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

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Proverb, Chinese

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace.

Buddha

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Greeley, Horace

10.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

14.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

15.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

16.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

17.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

18.

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

19.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

20.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

21.

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

Maritain, Jacques

22.

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

Thurber, James

23.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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

James A. Froude

25.

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

26.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

27.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

28.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

29.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

30.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

31.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

32.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

33.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

34.

Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

Merikare

35.

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

Euripides

36.

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

37.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

38.

The higher character a person supports the more they should regard their smallest actions.

39.

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.

Chambers, Oswald

40.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

41.

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

42.

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

43.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

44.

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

45.

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

46.

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

47.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

Lowell, James Russell

49.

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

50.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew