Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about 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

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

Voltaire

Everyone has three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Karr, Alphonse

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

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

Joan Didion

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

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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.

10.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

11.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

12.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

13.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

14.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

15.

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

16.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

17.

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

Mason, John L.

18.

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.

19.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

20.

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

Euripides

21.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

22.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

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

24.

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

Thomas, John M.

25.

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

Horace

26.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

27.

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

28.

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

Collins, Marva

29.

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

James A. Froude

30.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

31.

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

32.

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

33.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

34.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

35.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

36.

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.

37.

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

38.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

39.

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

40.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

41.

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

Hall, Manly