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

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

Freeman, Robert

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

Shakespeare, William

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

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.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

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

Bovee, Christian Nevell

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

10.

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

Proverb

11.

I would rather be adorned by beauty of character than jewels. Jewels are the gift of fortune, while character comes from within.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

12.

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

Bible

13.

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

Maritain, Jacques

14.

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

Aristotle

15.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

20.

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

21.

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

22.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

23.

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

24.

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

25.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.

Nathaniel Emmons

26.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

Lebowitz, Fran

27.

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

28.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

29.

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

30.

The highest qualities of character must be earned.

Abbott, Lyman

31.

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

Euripides

32.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

33.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Michener, James A.

37.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

38.

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

39.

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

Karr, Alphonse

40.

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

41.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

42.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

46.

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

47.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

Washington, Booker T.

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Voltaire