Motivational Quotes

Character

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

- Parkhurst, Charles H.

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Taylor, Bayard

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.

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

Maritain, Jacques

I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.

James, William

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

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

Honor is the inner garment of the Soul; the first thing put on by it with the flesh, and the last it layeth down at its separation from it.

Akhenaton

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

Buddha

10.

Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

Hay, Colin

12.

Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

Merikare

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

Estrange, L.

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

22.

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

23.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

24.

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

25.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

26.

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

Brown, Les

27.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

34.

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

Mason, John L.

35.

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

36.

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

37.

Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow and the force of it depends on the strength of the arm from which it was shot. Argument is like a bullet fired from a gun and has equal force even when issued from a child.

38.

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

39.

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

Chambers, Oswald

40.

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

41.

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

42.

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

Hall, Manly

43.

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

Lippmann, Walter

44.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.