Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Maritain, Jacques

Best Quotes about Character

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Hall, Manly

Football doesn't build character. It eliminates weak ones.

Royal, Darrell

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

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.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

Francis Thompson

10.

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

Estrange, L.

11.

Character is like the foundation of a house -- it is below the surface.

12.

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

13.

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

14.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

15.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

16.

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

17.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

18.

What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.

Dyke, Henry Van

19.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

20.

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.

21.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

22.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

23.

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

24.

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

25.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

26.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

27.

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

28.

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

Gill, Vince

29.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

30.

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

31.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

32.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

33.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

34.

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

35.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

36.

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

37.

You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

38.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

39.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

40.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

41.

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

42.

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

Michener, James A.

43.

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

44.

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

45.

It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, that counts.

Howell, Harry

46.

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

Horace

47.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

48.

A man's character is his fate.