Character Quotes

I have a dream, that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

Seneca, Epistles

There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty table - Land of a true character and of undying hope both for this world and the next.

Johathan Edwards

Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.

Sir John Gielgud

History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.

Lord John Whorfin

Freedom and indedendence form my character.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Founder of modern Turkey 24. 04. 1921

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

The influence of individual character extends from generation to generation.

Macleod

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate - To surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

Thomas Jefferson

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Johann von Goethe

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.

Orison Swett Marden

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

Thomas Paine

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".

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

Albert Einstein

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

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

The character of a man is known from his conversations.

Menande

Pride sullies the noblest character.

Claudianus

If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time.

Benito Mussolini, The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism, 1935

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

H. Jackson Browne, P. S. I Love You

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

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

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

Isabelle Eberhardt

Character is not made in a crisis it is only exhibited.

Rose Dorothy Freeman

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

Euripides

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

Henry David Thoreau

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)

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

George Washington

Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

John Wooden

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

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

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

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

Stendhal

Education has for its object the formation of character.

Herbert Spence

Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse. And those who despair to rise in distinction by their virtues, are happy if others can be depressed to a level of themselves.

Benjamin Franklin

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