Motivational Quotes

Character

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.

Best Quotes about Character

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

Horace

The man who cannot believe in himself cannot believe in anything else. The basis of all integrity and character is whatever faith we have in our own integrity.

Smith, Roy L.

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

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

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

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

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

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

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

Taylor, Bayard

10.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

11.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

12.

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

13.

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

Voltaire

14.

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

15.

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

16.

It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

17.

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

18.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

19.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

20.

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

21.

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

22.

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

Joan Didion

23.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

24.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou

Akhenaton

25.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

26.

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

27.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

Good character is like a rubber ball -- thrown down hard -- it bounces right back. Good reputation is like a crystal ball -- thrown for gain -- shattered and cracked.

Linall Jr. A. L.

29.

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

Leneru, Marie

30.

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.

31.

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

Aristotle

32.

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

33.

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

Freeman, Robert

34.

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

35.

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

Thackeray, William M.

36.

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

Estrange, L.

37.

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

Bible

38.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

39.

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.

40.

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

Royal, Darrell

41.

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

42.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

43.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

44.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

45.

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

46.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

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

Michener, James A.

49.

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.