Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Maritain, Jacques

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Estrange, L.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

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.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

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

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

Lubbock, Sir John

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

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

10.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.

11.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

12.

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

13.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus

14.

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

Karr, Alphonse

15.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

16.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

17.

Football doesn't build character. It eliminates weak ones.

Royal, Darrell

18.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

19.

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

20.

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

21.

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter either.

Thurber, James

22.

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.

23.

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

Petrarch, Francesco

24.

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

Crisp, Quentin

25.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character

Covey, Stephen R.

26.

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

27.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

28.

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

29.

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

30.

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Montale, Eugenio

31.

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

Lippmann, Walter

32.

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

Taylor, Bayard

33.

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln

34.

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

35.

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

Voltaire

36.

It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.

Covey, Stephen R.

37.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

38.

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

Francis Thompson

39.

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

40.

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

41.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

Haliburton, Thomas C.

42.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

43.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

44.

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.