Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

Best Quotes about Character

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

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

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

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Hay, Colin

10.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

11.

Character development is the aim of education.

O'Shea

12.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

King Jr. Martin Luther

13.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Disraeli, Benjamin

14.

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

15.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

16.

The man who cannot believe in himself cannot believe in anything else. The basis of all integrity and character is whatever faith we have in our own integrity.

Smith, Roy L.

17.

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

18.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

19.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

21.

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.

22.

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

23.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

24.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Maritain, Jacques

28.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

29.

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.

William Carleton

30.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

31.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another s.

Richter, Jean Paul

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Shakespeare, William

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Thomas, John M.

39.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

40.

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

41.

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

42.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

43.

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Forster, Edward M.

44.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

45.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

46.

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

Michener, James A.

47.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

48.

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.

49.

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

Seneca

50.

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