Motivational Quotes

Character

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

- Horace

Best Quotes about Character

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

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

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

Chesterfield, Lord

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

Howell, Harry

10.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece-by thought, choice, courage and determination.

Luther, John

11.

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

12.

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

Karr, Alphonse

13.

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

14.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

15.

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

Chambers, Oswald

16.

I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.

James, William

17.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

18.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

19.

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

Greeley, Horace

20.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

21.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

22.

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

Freeman, Robert

23.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

24.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

25.

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.

Boardman, George D.

26.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

Horace

27.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

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

James A. Froude

29.

Temperance is a tree which as for its root very little contentment, and for its fruit calm and peace.

Buddha

30.

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

Lippmann, Walter

31.

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

Seneca

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

35.

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

Angelou, Maya

36.

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.

37.

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.

William Carleton

38.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Shakespeare, William

39.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

40.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

41.

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

42.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

43.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

44.

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

45.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

46.

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.

47.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

48.

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

49.

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

Confucius

50.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar