Motivational Quotes

Character

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

Best Quotes about Character

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

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

Proverb, Chinese

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

Solon

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

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

Surmounting difficulty is the crucible that forms character.

Robbins, Anthony

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

Beecher, Henry Ward

Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give. When to this truth you awaken, then you begin to live.

Taylor, Bayard

10.

Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.

Frankfurter, Felix

11.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

12.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principles.

Hume, David

13.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

14.

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

Aquinas, St. Thomas

15.

If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.

Maurois, Andre

16.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

17.

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

18.

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Marden, Orison Swett

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.

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

Shakespeare, William

21.

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

Elihu Burritt

22.

Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self respect springs.

Joan Didion

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

26.

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

27.

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

28.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

29.

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

30.

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

Freeman, Robert

31.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

33.

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

34.

One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.

Estrange, L.

35.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

36.

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

Thackeray, William M.

37.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

38.

You don't get in life what you want; you get in life what you are.

Brown, Les

39.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

40.

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

41.

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

Lippmann, Walter

42.

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

43.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon