Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Crisp, Quentin

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

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Frankfurter, Felix

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

Estrange, L.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

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

Chesterfield, Lord

10.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

11.

Nothing marks the character of a young man more than failure.

12.

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

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.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

15.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Angelou, Maya

16.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

17.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

24.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

25.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

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

Lippmann, Walter

27.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

28.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

29.

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

30.

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

Marie Leneru

31.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Churchill, Winston

32.

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

33.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

34.

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

Euripides

35.

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character in a child.

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

36.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

37.

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

Shakespeare, William

38.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

39.

The formation of one's character ought to be everyone's chief aim.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

40.

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: initiative, imagination, individuality, and independence.

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

41.

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

Hay, Colin

42.

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

Taylor, Bayard

43.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Greeley, Horace

44.

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.

45.

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

46.

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

Collins, Marva

47.

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

Thomas, John M.

48.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Wooden, John

49.

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

50.

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