Motivational Quotes

Character

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

- La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Best Quotes about Character

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

Shakespeare, William

One can easily judge the character of a person by the way they treat people who can do nothing for them.

Proverb

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

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

Hermann Hesse

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

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

Hall, Manly

10.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

11.

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

12.

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

Thomas, John M.

13.

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

14.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

15.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

16.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

17.

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

18.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

19.

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

Francis Thompson

20.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

21.

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

22.

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

Taylor, Bayard

23.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Greeley, Horace

24.

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

Horace

25.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou

Akhenaton

26.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

27.

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

Baldwin, Faith

28.

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

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.

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

Peter The Great

31.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

32.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

33.

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

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.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

36.

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

37.

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

38.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

39.

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

Joan Didion

40.

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

Seneca

41.

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.