Motivational Quotes

Character

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

- Drummond, Henry

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

10.

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

11.

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

Chambers, Oswald

12.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

13.

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.

14.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

15.

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

16.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

17.

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

18.

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

19.

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

20.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

21.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

22.

It is better for the development of character and contentment to do certain things badly for yourself than to have them done better for you by someone else.

23.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

24.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

James A. Froude

25.

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

Proverb, Chinese

26.

The higher character a person supports the more they should regard their smallest actions.

27.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

29.

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

Buddha

30.

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

31.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

32.

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.

33.

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

Mason, John L.

34.

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.

35.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

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

Lippmann, Walter

39.

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

Thackeray, William M.

40.

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

41.

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

Greeley, Horace

42.

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

43.

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

44.

Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.

Elihu Burritt

45.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

46.

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

47.

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.

48.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Hepburn, Katharine

49.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

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