Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

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

Royal, Darrell

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

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

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

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

Taylor, Bayard

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Angelou, Maya

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

10.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

James, William

11.

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

12.

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

Beecher, Henry Ward

13.

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

14.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

15.

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

16.

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

Bible

17.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

18.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Wooden, John

19.

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.

20.

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

Elihu Burritt

21.

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

Crisp, Quentin

22.

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

23.

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

Shakespeare, William

24.

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

25.

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

26.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.

Bisset, Jacqueline

28.

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Lubbock, Sir John

29.

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

30.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

31.

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm... you can not buy loyalty. You can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.

Francis, Clarence

32.

One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.

Estrange, L.

33.

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

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.

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

Marie Leneru

36.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece-by thought, choice, courage and determination.

Luther, John

37.

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.

38.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

39.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Confucius

40.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

W. Somerset Maugham

41.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

42.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

43.

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

Greeley, Horace

44.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

45.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

50.

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