Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Richter, Jean Paul

Best Quotes about Character

Character is a victory, not a gift.

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

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

Maritain, Jacques

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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.

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

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

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca

10.

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

Howell, Harry

11.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

12.

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

13.

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

14.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Confucius

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.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

22.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

23.

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

24.

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

Merikare

25.

Character is the sum and total of a person's choices.

Fitzwater, P. B.

26.

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

27.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

28.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

29.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

30.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

31.

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

Proverb, Chinese

32.

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.

33.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

34.

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

35.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

36.

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

37.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

38.

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

Baldwin, Faith

39.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

40.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Greeley, Horace

46.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese