Motivational Quotes

Character

A man's character is his fate.

- Heraclitus

Best Quotes about Character

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Hermann Hesse

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

The higher character a person supports the more they should regard their smallest actions.

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

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

10.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

11.

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

Marie Leneru

12.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

13.

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

Reagan, Ronald

14.

He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Milton, John

15.

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

Thurber, James

16.

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

17.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

19.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

21.

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

22.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

23.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

24.

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

25.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

26.

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

27.

There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.

Hay, Colin

28.

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

Francis Thompson

29.

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

30.

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

Elihu Burritt

31.

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

32.

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Forster, Edward M.

33.

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.

Maritain, Jacques

34.

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

Proverb

35.

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

James A. Froude

36.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

37.

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

38.

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.

39.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

40.

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

Guideposts

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.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

45.

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.

46.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.