Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Joan Didion

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Nathaniel Emmons

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

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

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

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Covey, Stephen R.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

Lowell, James Russell

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.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

10.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

11.

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

Angelou, Maya

12.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

13.

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

14.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

15.

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

Marie Leneru

16.

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

17.

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.

Petrarch, Francesco

18.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

19.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

20.

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.

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Crisp, Quentin

24.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

25.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

26.

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

27.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

28.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

29.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

30.

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

Thurber, James

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Hermann Hesse

36.

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

37.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Wooden, John

38.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

39.

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.

40.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

41.

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.

42.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

43.

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

44.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

45.

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

Lippmann, Walter

46.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Collins, Marva

47.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

48.

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

49.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

50.

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