Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Goldsmith, Oliver

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

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.

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

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

Elmer G. Letterman

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

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Hall, Manly

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

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

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

10.

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

11.

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

Euripides

12.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

13.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

14.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

15.

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

Estrange, L.

16.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

Buren, Abigail Van

20.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

21.

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

22.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

23.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

24.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

25.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Disraeli, Benjamin

26.

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity.

27.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

28.

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

29.

The lord will not hold back the promises, even if the person who makes them is not worthy.

30.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

31.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

32.

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

33.

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

Royal, Darrell

34.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

King Jr. Martin Luther

35.

To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude. He who knows these three things

Confucius

36.

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

Peter The Great

37.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

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.

39.

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: initiative, imagination, individuality, and independence.

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Lippmann, Walter

43.

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

44.

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

Gill, Vince

45.

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

Marie Leneru

46.

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

47.

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

Chambers, Oswald

48.

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

Voltaire

49.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

50.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew