Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Jefferson, Thomas

Best Quotes about Character

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

Hepburn, Katharine

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

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

Francis Thompson

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

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

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

Crisp, Quentin

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

Hay, Colin

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

10.

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

11.

Character is another thing that is formed in youth and reformed in marriage.

12.

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

Seneca

13.

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

Joan Didion

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

17.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

18.

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

Proverb

19.

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.

20.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

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

22.

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

Estrange, L.

23.

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

Royal, Darrell

24.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

25.

While an original is always hard to find, he is easy to recognize.

Mason, John L.

26.

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

27.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

28.

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

Solon

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Guideposts

33.

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

Elihu Burritt

34.

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.

35.

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

Euripides

36.

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

Cicero

37.

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.

38.

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

Proverb, Chinese

39.

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

40.

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.

41.

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

Chambers, Oswald

42.

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

43.

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

Confucius

44.

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

45.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

46.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

47.

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

Marie Leneru

48.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

49.

The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.

Confucius

50.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Michener, James A.