Motivational Quotes

Character

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

- Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

Best Quotes about Character

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

James A. Froude

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

Solon

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

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

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

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

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

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

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.

Bisset, Jacqueline

10.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

11.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

15.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

16.

Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.

Frankfurter, Felix

17.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

18.

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

19.

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

Howell, Harry

20.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

21.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

22.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

23.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

24.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

25.

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

26.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

27.

Good character is like a rubber ball -- thrown down hard -- it bounces right back. Good reputation is like a crystal ball -- thrown for gain -- shattered and cracked.

Linall Jr. A. L.

28.

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

Horace

29.

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

30.

Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give. When to this truth you awaken, then you begin to live.

Taylor, Bayard

31.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

32.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

33.

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

Buddha

34.

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Thurber, James

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

43.

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

44.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

Carlyle, Thomas

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Hay, Colin

48.

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

49.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

50.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von