Motivational Quotes

Character

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

- Shakespeare, William

Best Quotes about Character

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

If all I'm remembered for is being a good basketball player, then I've done a bad job with the rest of my life.

Thomas, Isiah

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

Chambers, Oswald

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

Horace

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]

Bible

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

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

10.

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

11.

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

Leneru, Marie

12.

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

Hay, Colin

13.

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

Solon

14.

In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.

Francis Thompson

15.

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

16.

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

Lois McMaster Bujold

17.

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.

18.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

19.

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

20.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.

21.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

22.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

Voltaire

23.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

24.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

25.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

26.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

27.

One can easily judge the character of a person by the way they treat people who can do nothing for them.

Proverb

28.

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse.

Proverb

29.

Everyone has three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Karr, Alphonse

30.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

31.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

32.

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

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

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

Buddha

36.

If a man character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business.

Thackeray, William M.

37.

Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.

Bisset, Jacqueline

38.

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

Mason, John L.

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

44.

An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards, himself his own dungeon.

Pandita, Saskya

45.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

46.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

48.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.