Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Elihu Burritt

Best Quotes about Character

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Angelou, Maya

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.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

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

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

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

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

10.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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.

12.

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

Lubbock, Sir John

13.

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

14.

Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

15.

The lord will not hold back the promises, even if the person who makes them is not worthy.

16.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

17.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

18.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

19.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

20.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

21.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

22.

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

Proverb

23.

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.

Trotsky, Leon

24.

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

Buddha

25.

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

26.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

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

Reagan, Ronald

28.

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

Euripides

29.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

30.

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

Nathaniel Emmons

31.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in dreams.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

32.

The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause of dissatisfaction with himself.

Confucius

33.

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

Thackeray, William M.

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Wherever man goes to dwell his character goes with him.

Proverb, African

37.

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

Karr, Alphonse

38.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

39.

He that has light within his own clear breast may sit in the center, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Milton, John

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.

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

Francis Thompson

42.

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

Elmer G. Letterman

43.

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

44.

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

Baldwin, Faith

45.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

Lowell, James Russell

46.

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.

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver