Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Lincoln, Abraham

Best Quotes about Character

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

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

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

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Marden, Orison Swett

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

10.

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

Howell, Harry

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 can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

13.

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

Mason, John L.

14.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

15.

Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.

Freeman, Robert

16.

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Proverb, Chinese

17.

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

Hermann Hesse

18.

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

19.

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

Guideposts

20.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

21.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

22.

I would rather be adorned by beauty of character than jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, while character comes from within.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

23.

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

24.

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

Brown, Les

25.

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

Euripides

26.

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

Elihu Burritt

27.

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

28.

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

James A. Froude

29.

It is better for the development of character and contentment to do certain things badly for yourself than to have them done better for you by someone else.

30.

My father told me that if you saw a man in a Rolls Royce you could be sure he was not a gentleman unless he was the chauffeur.

Arran, Earl of

31.

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

32.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

33.

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

34.

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

35.

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

36.

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

Horace

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

41.

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

42.

Character in a saint means the disposition of Jesus Christ persistently manifested.

Chambers, Oswald

43.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.

Akhenaton

45.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

46.

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

47.

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

Shakespeare, William

48.

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.

49.

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Landers, Ann

50.

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