Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Best Quotes about Character

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

Nathaniel Emmons

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character

Covey, Stephen R.

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

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

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.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

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

Aristotle

10.

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

11.

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

Karr, Alphonse

12.

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

Thurber, James

13.

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

Hermann Hesse

14.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

15.

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

Proverb

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

24.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

25.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

26.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

27.

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

Brown, Les

28.

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

Guideposts

29.

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.

30.

While an original is always hard to find, he is easy to recognize.

Mason, John L.

31.

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse.

Proverb

32.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

33.

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

Shakespeare, William

34.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

35.

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

Joan Didion

36.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

37.

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

38.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

39.

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

Baldwin, Faith

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

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.

43.

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.

44.

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

Euripides

45.

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

Royal, Darrell

46.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.