Motivational Quotes

Character

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

- Lois McMaster Bujold

Best Quotes about Character

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

Voltaire

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

Aristotle

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

Lincoln, Abraham

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.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

Horace

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

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

Hermann Hesse

10.

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

Thackeray, William M.

11.

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

12.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

13.

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

Howell, Harry

14.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

15.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

16.

It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

17.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

19.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

20.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

Character is made by many acts; it may be lost by a single one.

27.

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

Buddha

28.

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Landers, Ann

29.

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

Guideposts

30.

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

Bible

31.

Few people can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

32.

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

Brown, Les

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.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

35.

I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.

Lois McMaster Bujold

36.

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

Maritain, Jacques

37.

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

Proverb

38.

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

Proverb, Chinese

39.

One can easily judge the character of a person by the way they treat people who can do nothing for them.

Proverb

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.

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

42.

There is never a better measure of what a person is than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.

Bulger, William M.

43.

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

44.

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

Forster, Edward M.

45.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.

Peter The Great

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

50.

The man who cannot believe in himself cannot believe in anything else. The basis of all integrity and character is whatever faith we have in our own integrity.

Smith, Roy L.