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

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

Hermann Hesse

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.

Character is a victory, not a gift.

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

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all: only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.

Euripides

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

Karr, Alphonse

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

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

Aquinas, St. Thomas

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.

10.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Michener, James A.

11.

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.

12.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Shakespeare, William

14.

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

15.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

16.

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.

17.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

18.

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.

19.

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

Haliburton, Thomas C.

20.

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

Horace

21.

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

22.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

23.

Clothes don't tell the character of the man, but they just as well talk for him as against him.

24.

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

25.

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

Hepburn, Katharine

26.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Shakespeare, William

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Reynolds, Sir Joshua

30.

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

31.

One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.

Marie Henri Beyle

32.

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

Lippmann, Walter

33.

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

Fitzwater, P. B.

34.

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

35.

Some people are born hammers, others anvils.

Proverb

36.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus

37.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

38.

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

Proverb

39.

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

Greeley, Horace

40.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

41.

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

Reagan, Ronald

42.

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

Rickenbacker, Edward Vernon

43.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

44.

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

Confucius

45.

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

Chesterfield, Lord

46.

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menander

47.

Property may be destroyed and money may lose its purchasing power; but, character, health, knowledge and good judgment will always be in demand under all conditions.

Babson, Roger

48.

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

James A. Froude

49.

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

50.

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

Wilson, Woodrow T.