Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Lavater, Johann Kaspar

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

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

Football doesn't build character. It eliminates weak ones.

Royal, Darrell

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

James, William

10.

Character is not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited.

Freeman, Robert

11.

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

12.

Before you advise anyone Be yourself! reassess his character.

13.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

14.

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.

Hermann Hesse

15.

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

16.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

17.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

18.

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

Seneca

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.

Nothing marks the character of a young man more than failure.

21.

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

Michener, James A.

22.

During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Baruch, Bernard M.

23.

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

24.

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

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.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

27.

To have character is to be big enough to take life on.

Richards, Mary Caroline

28.

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

29.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

30.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

31.

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

James A. Froude

32.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

33.

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you can not buy enthusiasm... you can not buy loyalty. You can not buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these.

Francis, Clarence

34.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

35.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.

Aristotle

36.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

37.

When God measures man, He puts the tape around his heart -- not his head.

Guideposts

38.

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

Reagan, Ronald

39.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Chesterfield, Lord

40.

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

Francis Thompson

41.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

42.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

43.

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

44.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

45.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

46.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

Keller, Helen

47.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

48.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

49.

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

50.

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