Motivational Quotes

Character

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

- Thoreau, Henry David

Best Quotes about Character

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

Estrange, L.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feelings he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.

William Carleton

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

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

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

James, William

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

Thoreau, Henry David

10.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

Richter, Jean Paul

11.

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.

12.

Clear conscience never fears midnight knocking.

Proverb, Chinese

13.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

14.

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

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

15.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

16.

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

Aristotle

17.

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

18.

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.

19.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

20.

Instill the love of you into all the world, for a good character is what is remembered.

Merikare

21.

Character is to man what carbon is to steel.

Hill, Napoleon

22.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

23.

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

Proverb, Chinese

24.

For character too is a process and an unfolding... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

Eliot, George

25.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

26.

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

Proverb

27.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

28.

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

Francis Thompson

29.

Character isn't something you were born with and can't change, like your fingerprints. It's something you weren't born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Rohn, Jim

30.

Character is the impulse reined down into steady continuance.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

31.

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.

32.

When about to commit a base deed, respect thyself, though there is no witness.

Ausonius, Decimus Magnus

33.

To succeed is nothing, it's an accident. but to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.

Marie Leneru

34.

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

Freeman, Robert

35.

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

Confucius

36.

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

Maritain, Jacques

37.

Look, we're all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house --in the bedroom he's asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he's rolling around with some bareass girl, in the library he's paying his taxes, in the yard he's raising tomatoes, and in the cellar he's making a bomb to blow it all up.

Miller, Arthur

38.

To succeed is nothing -- it's an accident. But to feel no doubts about oneself is something very different: it is character.

Leneru, Marie

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Guideposts

42.

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

43.

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

Richards, Mary Caroline

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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.

Buren, Abigail Van

47.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

48.

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

49.

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.

50.

Character is our destiny.

Heraclitus