Character Quotes

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

Francis Thompson

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Johann von Goethe

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward.

Henry Ford

Character is what can do without success.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people.

Claiborne Pell

The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.

I Ching

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

James A. Froude

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

Henry David Thoreau

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

Thomas Paine

Character is who you are when no one is looking.

Allan Williams

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

Not to be cheered by praise, Not to be grieved by blame, But to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers Are the characteristics of an excellent man.

Saskya Pandita

The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.

Douglas Adams, "Mostly Harmless".

To bear failure with courage is the best proof of character that anyone can give.

W. Somerset Maugham

Sow an act... reap a habit Sow a habit... reap a character Sow a character... reap a destiny.

George Dana Boardman

Education has for its object the formation of character.

Herbert Spence

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

A man has no more character than he can command in a time of crisis.

Anonymous

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

This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor to change the character of our thought.

Lin Yutang

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.

Freeman John Dyson

The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.

Isabelle Eberhardt

The influence of individual character extends from generation to generation.

Macleod

Common - Sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.

W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

In making up the character of God, the old theologians failed to mention that He is of infinite cheerfulness. The omission has caused the world much tribulation.

Michael Monahan

Every man has three characters: that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Alphonse Ka

There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.

Mahatma Gandhi

Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.

Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

Japanese Prove

We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.

Ricthe

Boredom is a sign of satisfied ignorance, blunted apprehension, crass sympathies, dull understanding, feeble powers of attention, and irreclaimable weakness of character.

James Bridie

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.

Solon

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

Nature is at work.. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow.

David Seabury