Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Lippmann, Walter

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Proverb

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

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

Hepburn, Katharine

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

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Cicero, Marcus T.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

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

Elmer G. Letterman

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

10.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

11.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

12.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

13.

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

Michener, James A.

14.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

15.

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

Shakespeare, William

16.

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

17.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

18.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Collins, Marva

19.

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

20.

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

George Santayana

21.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

26.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

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

Hermann Hesse

28.

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

Drummond, Henry

29.

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

Thomas, John M.

30.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

34.

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

35.

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

Francis Thompson

36.

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

37.

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

38.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

39.

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

Solon

40.

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

Chambers, Oswald

41.

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

42.

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

Buddha

43.

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

44.

One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.

Estrange, L.

45.

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

Brown, Les

46.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.

Nathaniel Emmons

48.

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

49.

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

50.

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

Proverb