Motivational Quotes

Character

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.

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

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

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

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

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

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

Solon

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

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

Elihu Burritt

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

10.

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

Freeman, Robert

11.

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

Karr, Alphonse

12.

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

13.

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

14.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

15.

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

Leneru, Marie

16.

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

17.

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

Chambers, Oswald

18.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

19.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

20.

There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.

Hay, Colin

21.

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

Lippmann, Walter

22.

Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity.

23.

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

Shakespeare, William

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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.

32.

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.

33.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

34.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

35.

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

Taylor, Bayard

36.

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

37.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

Richter, Jean Paul

38.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

39.

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

Buddha

40.

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

Thurber, James

41.

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

42.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

43.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

44.

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.

45.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Joan Didion

50.

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

Horace