Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

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

Lippmann, Walter

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

Howell, Harry

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

Royal, Darrell

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

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

Francis Thompson

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

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

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

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

10.

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

Solon

11.

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

12.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

13.

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

Dyke, Henry Van

14.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

Voltaire

15.

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

Horace

16.

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

17.

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

Hermann Hesse

18.

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

Mohammed

19.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards, himself his own dungeon.

Pandita, Saskya

20.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

21.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

22.

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.

23.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

24.

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

James A. Froude

25.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

26.

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

27.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

28.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

29.

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

30.

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

Confucius

31.

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

32.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

33.

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Pandita, Saskya

34.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

35.

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

Angelou, Maya

36.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

37.

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

Thackeray, William M.

38.

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse.

Proverb

39.

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

Maritain, Jacques

40.

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.

41.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

42.

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

Hall, Manly

43.

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

Michener, James A.

44.

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