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
Probably the most distinctive characteristic of the successful politician is selective cowardice.Richard Harris
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.Paxton Hood
The best part of the fiction in many novels is the notice that the characters are purely imaginary.Franklin P. Adams
When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.Confucius, The Confucian Analects
It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy - From lack of character.Dag Hammarskjld
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
Talents are best nurtured in solitude; but character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.Johan 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
Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.William Golding
Education has for its object the formation of character.Herbert Spence
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as by the latter.Paxton Hood
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
One can acquire everything in solitude - Except character.Marie Henri Beyle
The discipline of desire is the background of character.John Locke
Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.Tyron Edwards
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.Albert Einstein
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.Sir John Gielgud
To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.Elias Boudinot
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
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
Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.Elihu Burritt
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.Henry Clay
Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.Euripides
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 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
The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination.Richard Hofstadte
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