Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

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.

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

Voltaire

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

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

Chesterfield, Lord

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

Greeley, Horace

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

10.

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.

11.

It is better for the development of character and contentment to do certain things badly for yourself than to have them done better for you by someone else.

12.

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

Solon

13.

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

Estrange, L.

14.

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

Angelou, Maya

15.

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

Euripides

16.

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

17.

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

Karr, Alphonse

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

21.

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

Aristotle

22.

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

23.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

24.

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

25.

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

Proverb

26.

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

Drummond, Henry

27.

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

28.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

29.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

30.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

31.

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

Mason, John L.

32.

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

33.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

34.

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

Leneru, Marie

35.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

36.

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

Hermann Hesse

37.

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

38.

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

39.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

40.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Royal, Darrell

45.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Cicero, Marcus T.

46.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

47.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

48.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

49.

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

Hay, Colin