Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Character

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.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character in a child.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

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

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

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

10.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

Lois McMaster Bujold

11.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

12.

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

13.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

14.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

15.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

16.

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

Seneca

17.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Churchill, Winston

18.

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

19.

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

20.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

21.

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

Confucius

22.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

23.

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

Angelou, Maya

24.

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

Taylor, Bayard

25.

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.

26.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

27.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Hepburn, Katharine

28.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

29.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

30.

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

31.

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

Freeman, Robert

32.

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

33.

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

Crisp, Quentin

34.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

35.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

36.

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

Guideposts

37.

My father told me that if you saw a man in a Rolls Royce you could be sure he was not a gentleman unless he was the chauffeur.

Arran, Earl of

38.

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

39.

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Pandita, Saskya

40.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

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

42.

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

Thurber, James

43.

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

44.

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

Karr, Alphonse

45.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

46.

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

47.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

48.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

49.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Covey, Stephen R.

50.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo