Motivational Quotes

Character

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.

- Pandita, Saskya

Best Quotes about Character

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

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

Taylor, Bayard

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

Character is victory organized.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Richter, Jean Paul

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

Proverb

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

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Confucius

10.

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

11.

A rich man has no need of character.

Proverb, Hebrew

12.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

13.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

14.

Character is another thing that is formed in youth and reformed in marriage.

15.

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

16.

Success is always temporary. When all is said and one, the only thing you'll have left is your character.

Gill, Vince

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

Collins, Marva

22.

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

23.

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

Aristotle

24.

Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.

Bounds, E. M.

25.

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

Estrange, L.

26.

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

27.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

28.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

James, William

29.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Camus, Albert

30.

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

Angelou, Maya

31.

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

Frankfurter, Felix

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Crisp, Quentin

35.

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

Francis Thompson

36.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

James A. Froude

37.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

38.

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

Joan Didion

39.

They attack the one man with their hate and their shower of weapons. But he is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against by the waves, endures all the violence

Virgil

40.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

41.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Greeley, Horace

42.

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow.

Beecher, Henry Ward

43.

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.

44.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Gardner, Ava

45.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Oscar Levant

46.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Thoreau, Henry David

47.

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