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, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

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

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

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

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

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

Lippmann, Walter

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.

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

Thurber, James

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Trotsky, Leon

10.

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

11.

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

Gill, Vince

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

16.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

17.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

18.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

19.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

20.

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm... you can not buy loyalty. You can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.

Francis, Clarence

21.

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

Aristotle

22.

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

Mason, John L.

23.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

24.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

25.

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

Taylor, Bayard

26.

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

Euripides

27.

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.

28.

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

Royal, Darrell

29.

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

Buddha

30.

If anyone tells you someone has changed their character; don't believe it.

Mohammed

31.

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

Baldwin, Faith

32.

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.

Proverb, Chinese

33.

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

Maritain, Jacques

34.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Goldsmith, Oliver

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Collins, Marva

38.

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

Freeman, Robert

39.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

W. Somerset Maugham

40.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

41.

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

Chambers, Oswald

42.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Confucius

43.

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

44.

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

Jefferson, Thomas

45.

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

46.

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

47.

Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

George Santayana

48.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

49.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

50.

Character development is the aim of education.