Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Elmer G. Letterman

Best Quotes about Character

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses.

Crisp, Quentin

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

Freeman, Robert

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

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

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

11.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

12.

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

Voltaire

13.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

14.

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

Maritain, Jacques

15.

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

Thoreau, Henry David

16.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

17.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

18.

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

Brown, Les

19.

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

20.

It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog, that counts.

Howell, Harry

21.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Joan Didion

27.

To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practice with vigor is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude. He who knows these three things

Confucius

28.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

29.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

30.

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

31.

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

Francis Thompson

32.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

33.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

34.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

35.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

40.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

41.

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

Hermann Hesse

42.

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