Character Quotes
Probably the most distinctive characteristic of the successful politician is selective cowardice.Richard Harris
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.Alexander Hamilton, Speech on 21 June 1788 urging ratification of the Constitution in New York.
Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.H. Jackson Browne, P. S. I Love You
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.Aeschylus, Agamemnon
A man of character in peace is a man of courage in war.Sir James Glove
Character can not 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
Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.Euripides
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.James A. Froude
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.Albert Einstein
Do what you know and perception is converted into character.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.Elmer G. Letterman
Talents are best nurtured in solitude character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.Johann von Goethe
If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself.D. L. Moody
Sow an act... reap a habit Sow a habit... reap a character Sow a character... reap a destiny.George Dana Boardman
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
Knowledge is essential to conquest; only according to our ignorance are we helpless. Thought creates character. Character can dominate conditions. Will creates circumstances and environment.Anne Besant
What made the deepest impression upon you? inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, when you stood in the presence of the Falls of Niagara, the greatest of natural wonders? - - - - The thing that stuck me most forcibly when I saw the Falls, Lincoln responded with the characteristic deliberation, was where in the world did all that water come from?Author Unknown
You can judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing to them or for them.Malcolm Forbes
In all the affairs of life, social as well as political, courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest to the grateful and appreciating heart.Henry Clay
Our character... is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.George Santayana, "The German Mind: A Philosophical Diagnosis".
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
Character is not made in a crisis it is only exhibited.Rose Dorothy Freeman
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.Oscar Levant
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, Here comes number seventy - One!Richard M. DeVos
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.Philip Dormer Chesterfield
Character is what can do without success.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
Character builds slowly but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.Faith Baldwin
This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor to change the character of our thought.Lin Yutang
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
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.Samuel Johnson
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
Boredom is a sign of satisfied ignorance, blunted apprehension, crass sympathies, dull understanding, feeble powers of attention, and irreclaimable weakness of character.James Bridie
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.Henry David Thoreau
History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances.Donald Creighton
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.Johann von Goethe
