Character Quotes
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
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
There never was a good knife made of bad steel. - Benjamin Franklin
All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.- Pablo Neruda
The qualities of a great man are vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character. - Dwight Eisenhower
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Winston Churchill
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people. - Arthur Schopenhauer
To be thrown upon one’s own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previosly unsusceptible.- Benjamin Franklin
Don't accept that others know you better than yourself. Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results. - James Allen
Character is what you are in the dark. - Author Unknown
What someone is, begins to be revealed when his talent abates, when he stops showing us what he can do. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Don't be content with being average. Average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top. - Author Unknown
We are where we are, as we are, because of what we are. - Earle J. Glade
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be, be one.- Marcus Aurelius
Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character. - T. Alan Armstrong
Not in time, place or circumstance but in the man lies success.- James Joyce
We have no right to ask when a sorrow comes, 'Why did this happen to me?' unless we ask the same question for every joy that comes our way. - Author Unknown
You can’t talk your way out of what you’ve behaved yourself into. - Stephen R. Covey
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. - Abigail van Buren
If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work. - Beryl Markham
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
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. - Victor Frankl
Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.- Thomas Carlyle
If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits. - William J. Bennett
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller
Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. - Thomas Carlyle
A fight is going on inside me, he said to the boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too. The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf will win?
The old Cherokee simply replied, The one you feed.
- Indian Proverb
Every great institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man. His character determines the character of the organization. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man's character is his fate. - Heraclitus of Ephesus
Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders' spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground. - Frank Lloyd Wright
He who fears losing his reputation is sure to lose it. - Napoleon Bonaparte
It is in the character of very few men to honour without envy a friend who has prospered. - Aeschylus
Will power is only the tensile strength of one's own disposition. One cannot increase it by a single ounce. - Cesare Pavese
The analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. - Isaac Bashevis Singer
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness unless he has the strength of character to be wicked. All other goodness is generally nothing but indolence or impotence of will. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld