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

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

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

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

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

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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.

12.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

13.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

14.

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

Marie Leneru

15.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

16.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

17.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

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

Buddha

19.

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

20.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

21.

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.

22.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

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

Michener, James A.

24.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Thoreau, Henry David

25.

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

Royal, Darrell

26.

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

Mason, John L.

27.

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

Elihu Burritt

28.

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

29.

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

Thomas, John M.

30.

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

31.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

32.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

Limbaugh, Rush

33.

To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude. He who knows these three things

Confucius

34.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

35.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

36.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

37.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

38.

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

Thomas, Isiah

39.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

40.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

41.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

42.

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

Maritain, Jacques

43.

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

Merikare

44.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

45.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Crisp, Quentin

50.

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