Motivational Quotes

Character

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

- Lois McMaster Bujold

Best Quotes about 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

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

To succeed is nothing -- it's an accident. But to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.

Leneru, Marie

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

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]

Bible

Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

Cicero

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

Hermann Hesse

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

Lubbock, Sir John

10.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

11.

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

12.

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

Lippmann, Walter

13.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

14.

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

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.

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

Guideposts

17.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

18.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

19.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

20.

To succeed is nothing, it's an accident. but to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.

Marie Leneru

21.

To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude. He who knows these three things

Confucius

22.

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

23.

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

Freeman, Robert

24.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

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

Taylor, Bayard

31.

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

32.

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

Mason, John L.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

36.

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

Michener, James A.

37.

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

Voltaire

38.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

39.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

Lebowitz, Fran

40.

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

James A. Froude

41.

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

Greeley, Horace

42.

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

Proverb

43.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character

Covey, Stephen R.

44.

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

45.

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

46.

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

Brown, Les

47.

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.

Boardman, George D.

48.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

49.

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter either.