Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Goldsmith, Oliver

Best Quotes about Character

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

Lippmann, Walter

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Landers, Ann

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

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

Francis Thompson

10.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

11.

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

Brown, Les

12.

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

Chambers, Oswald

13.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

14.

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

Solon

15.

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.

16.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

17.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

18.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

19.

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

Joan Didion

20.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

21.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

That which we call character is a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a familiar or genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

23.

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

24.

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

Greeley, Horace

25.

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

Elihu Burritt

26.

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.

27.

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

Baldwin, Faith

28.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

29.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

30.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

31.

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

Hermann Hesse

32.

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

Estrange, L.

33.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

34.

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

Voltaire

35.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

36.

You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

37.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

38.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

39.

Nothing marks the character of a young man more than failure.

40.

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

Angelou, Maya

41.

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

42.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

43.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

44.

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

45.

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

46.

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

Seneca

47.

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.

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

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

Gill, Vince