Motivational Quotes

Character

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

- Keller, Helen

Best Quotes about Character

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

Frankfurter, Felix

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

Mohammed

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

Gill, Vince

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Churchill, Winston

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

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

Seneca

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

10.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

14.

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Lubbock, Sir John

15.

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

16.

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

Shakespeare, William

17.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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.

22.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

23.

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

Thomas, John M.

24.

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

25.

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

26.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

27.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

28.

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

Thackeray, William M.

29.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

30.

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

Lippmann, Walter

31.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

32.

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

33.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

Maurois, Andre

34.

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.

35.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

36.

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

Solon

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

40.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

41.

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

Guideposts

42.

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

Crisp, Quentin

43.

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

44.

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

45.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

46.

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

47.

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

Buren, Abigail Van

48.

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

Elihu Burritt

49.

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

James A. Froude

50.

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