Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Lois McMaster Bujold

Best Quotes about Character

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

Hall, Manly

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.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

Thackeray, William M.

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

15.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

16.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

17.

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

Michener, James A.

18.

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

19.

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

Seneca

20.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

21.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

22.

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

Chambers, Oswald

23.

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

Shakespeare, William

24.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

25.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

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

27.

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

Leneru, Marie

28.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

29.

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.

William Carleton

30.

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

31.

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

Euripides

32.

The man who cannot believe in himself cannot believe in anything else. The basis of all integrity and character is whatever faith we have in our own integrity.

Smith, Roy L.

33.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

34.

Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own.

Gaulle, Charles De

35.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

36.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

37.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

38.

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

39.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

40.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

41.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

42.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

43.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

44.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

45.

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

Thomas, John M.

46.

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

Bisset, Jacqueline

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

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

Maritain, Jacques

50.

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