Character Quotes
In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power and what is beyond it.Francis Thompson
A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only he himself can damage that. His reputations what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity.John Ballantine Gough
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.Aeschylus, Agamemnon
The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick - Sighted thence proceeds mawkishness.John Keats
I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character.Woodrow Wilson
History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances.Donald Creighton
You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.Norman Douglas
Character is power.Booker T. Washington
Sports do not build character. They reveal it.Heywood
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.Samuel Johnson
Character is what can do without success.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.Oscar Levant
There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness, and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness, and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.Johann Kaspar Lavate
Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.Charles Reade
In later life, as in earlier, only a few persons influence the formation of our character the multitude pass us by like a distant army.Jean Paul Friedrich Richte
A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto p. 74 (pb 93)
When writing a novel a writer should create living people people not characters. A character is a caricature.Ernest Hemingway
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
Every man has three characters: that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.Alphonse Ka
The discipline of desire is the background of character.John Locke
The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.....Douglas Noel Adams
A rich man has no need of character.Hebrew Prove
The degradation which characterizes the state into which you plunge him by punishing him pleases, amuses, and delights him. Deep down he enjoys having gone so far as to deserve being treated in such a way.Marquis de Sade
What makes a good follower The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.Warren Bennis
Johnson himself turned out to be so many different characters he could have populated all of War and Peace and still had a few people left over.Herbert Mitgang
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.Helen Kelle
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate - To surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.Thomas Jefferson
The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and interests are the sole spring of actions.Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.Theodore Roosevelt
Parents can only advise their children or point them in the right direction. Ultimately people shape their own characters.Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Dreams can become a reality when we possess a vision that is characterized by the willingness to work hard, a desire for excellence and a belief in our right and our responsibility to be equal members of society.Janet Jackson
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.Albert Einstein
Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus.John Ashcroft
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.James Russell Lowell
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.James Albert Michene
Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.Kahlil Gibran
It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.Henry David Thoreau
