Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Hall, Manly

Best Quotes about Character

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

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

W. Somerset Maugham

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

James A. Froude

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

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

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.

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

Dyke, Henry Van

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

Angelou, Maya

10.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

11.

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

Chambers, Oswald

12.

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

13.

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

14.

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

15.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

16.

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

Gill, Vince

17.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

18.

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

Howell, Harry

19.

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

Crisp, Quentin

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

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

24.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

25.

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

Euripides

26.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

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

Proverb, Chinese

28.

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

Lippmann, Walter

29.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

30.

Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

Merikare

31.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

32.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

33.

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

Baldwin, Faith

34.

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

Francis Thompson

35.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

39.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

40.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

41.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

42.

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

43.

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.

44.

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

Proverb

45.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

46.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

47.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.