Motivational Quotes

Character

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Character

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

Proverb

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

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

Chesterfield, Lord

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

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

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.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

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

Elihu Burritt

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

Howell, Harry

12.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

13.

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

14.

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

15.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

Keller, Helen

16.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Goldsmith, Oliver

17.

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

Guideposts

18.

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

Mason, John L.

19.

In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.

Francis Thompson

20.

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.

21.

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

Crisp, Quentin

22.

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

Aristotle

23.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

24.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

25.

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

Joan Didion

26.

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

27.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Lincoln, Abraham

28.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

29.

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.

30.

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.

31.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

32.

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

Lippmann, Walter

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

37.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

38.

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

Royal, Darrell

39.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

40.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca

41.

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

42.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

43.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

44.

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.

Chambers, Oswald

45.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

47.

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.

48.

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

Proverb

49.

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

Taylor, Bayard

50.

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