Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Proverb, Chinese

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

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

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

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

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

Thomas, John M.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

11.

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

Greeley, Horace

12.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

13.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

14.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

15.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

16.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Maritain, Jacques

20.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

21.

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

Thurber, James

22.

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.

23.

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

Hermann Hesse

24.

It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, that counts.

Howell, Harry

25.

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.

26.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.

Lippmann, Walter

28.

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.

29.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

30.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Collins, Marva

31.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

32.

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.

Boardman, George D.

33.

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

34.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

35.

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.

Elmer G. Letterman

36.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

37.

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

38.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

39.

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

40.

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

44.

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

Mason, John L.

45.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

46.

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

47.

Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.

Akhenaton

48.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

Carlyle, Thomas

49.

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

50.

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

Jefferson, Thomas