Last Updated: August 27, 2022 by Quote.cc Team
Character is a big idea that brings a lot of meanings to mind. Humans spend a lot of time thinking about how Character is built and measured.
A character can help guide you in difficult times, and judging it well can help you determine whether to trust someone. It is also essential to think critically and honestly about our Character and how we can become better people.
Your Character is one thing you always want to be aware of because your Character determines your reputation. Actions speak louder than words, so as a wise man once said, ‘Character is what you do when you think no one is looking… Let’s be honest with ourselves and keep our Character strong today.
Read these inspirational quotes about building great Character. Let these character quotes and sayings inspire you to reflect on the qualities of the Character you want to adopt or enhance.
400 Character Quotes
Top 10 Character Quotes
“Virtue is like rich stone, best plain set.” – Francis Bacon
“Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.” – John Locke
“To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” – George Washington, in a letter to his nephew in 1790
“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.” – Confucius
“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“To brag little, to lose well, To crow gently if in luck, To pay up, to own up, To shut up if beaten, Are the virtues of a sportingman.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.” – Voltaire
“Thus, it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.” – Niccolo Machiavelli
“There must be some point, at which the lawyer’s own personal and social morality will rebel against his traditional allegiance to his client.” – Professor Harry Jones
“There is much difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him.” – Benjamin Franklin
What is Character?
“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.” – Yousuf Karsh
“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Character refers to dispositions and habits that determine the way that person normally responds to desires, fears, challenges, opportunities, failures and successes.” – Michael Josephson
“Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.” – Aristotle
“Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.” – Jim Rohn
“Character is what you are in the dark.” – Rev. Dwight Moody
“Character is the sum total of all our everyday choices.” – Margaret Jensen
“Character is the sum of one’s good habits (virtues) and bad habits (vices). These habits mark us and affect the ways in which we respond to life’s events and challenges. Our character is our profile of habits and dispositions to act in certain ways.” – Tom Lickona, Eric Schaps and Catherine Lewis
“Character is the moral strength to do the right thing even when it costs more than you want to pay.” – Michael Josephson
“Character is the main object of education.” – Mary Wolley
“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.” – Aristotle
“Character is simply habit long continued.” – Plutarch
“Character is revealed by how you act when you think no one is looking.”
“Character is power.” – Booker T. Washington
“Character is one of the greatest motive powers in the world. In its noblest embodiments, it exemplifies human nature in its highest forms, for it exhibits man at his best.” – Samuel Smiles
“Character is not cut in marble – it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.” – George Eliot
“Character is much easier kept than recovered.” – Thomas Paine
“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
“Character is just another term for “good person.” A person of character lives a worthy life guided by moral principles. A person of character is a good parent, a good friend, a good employee and a good citizen.” – Michael Josephson
“Character is higher than intellect.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Character is ethics in action.” – Michael Josephson
“Character is ethical and moral strength. People of good character have the moral awareness and strength to know the good, love the good and do the good.” – Michael Josephson
“Character is doing what’s right.” – Jocko Willink
“Character is doing what you don’t want to do but know you should do.” – Joyce Meyer
“Character is developed one positive action at a time. Therefore, nothing is actually trivial in our lives. To grow in character development, pay attention to seemingly trivial matters. Someone who grows from each minor life event will eventually reach high levels of character perfection.” – Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Character is destiny.” – Heraclitus
“Character is built when no one is looking.” – Carlos Del Valle
“Character is both formed and revealed by how one deals with everyday situations as well as extraordinary pressures and temptations. Like a well-made tower, character is built stone by stone, decision by decision.” – Michael Josephson
“Character is a diamond that scratches every other stone.” – Cyrus Bartol
“Character grows in the soil of experience with the fertilization of example, the moisture of ambition, and the sunshine of satisfaction. Character cannot be purchased, bargained for, inherited, rented or imported from afar. It must be home-grown. Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all too often in the academic world, that’s exactly what we do by not focusing on the character development of young people.” – Steven Covey
“Character development is the great, if not the sole, aim of education.” – William James O’Shea
“Character determines how we lead our lives, how we deal with life’s unearned fortunes and misfortunes and how we make choices that determine how those fortunes and misfortunes work to make us what we become.” – Michael Josephson
“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” – James A. Michener
“Character consists of the moral awareness and strength to know the good, love the good and do the good.” – derived from Tom Lickona
“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 Keller
“Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.” – Faith Baldwin
“Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.” – Joan Didion
Good Character Quotes
“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That’s what a reputation is. You can’t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.” – Wayne W. Dyer
“Your religion is what you do when the sermon is over.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Your character is formed by the challenges you face and overcome.” – Nick Vujicic
“You will know what kind of man he is not by the things he says, but by the things he does.” – Cassandra Clare
“You will become as small as you controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.” – James Allen
“You must not be influenced by the opponent.” – Miyamoto Musashi
“You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself.” – Seneca
“You don’t need to take the last dollar.” – Charlie Munger
“There is no royal road to virtue.” – Sir Thomas Browne
“There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.” – Mark Twain
“There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men’s deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
“The within is ceaselessly becoming the without. From the state of a man’s heart doth proceed the conditions of his life; his thoughts blossom into deeds, and his deeds bear the fruitage of character and destiny.” – James Allen
“The wealthy man is the man who is much, not the one who has much.”
“The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“The way we treat people we think can’t help or hurt us — like housekeepers, waiters, and secretaries — tells more about our character than how we treat people we think are important. How we behave when we think no one is looking or when we don’t think we will get caught more accurately portrays our character than what we say or do in service of our reputations.” – Michael Josephson
“The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” – Socrates
“The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.” – Stephen Covey
“The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The more people you try to please the more enslaved you become.” – Paul Domenick
“People that seem so glorious are all show. Underneath they’re like anybody else.” – Euripides
“People of good character are not all going to come down on the same side of difficult political and social issues. . . . We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely, on the importance of good character, and some of its pervasive particulars.” – William J. Bennett
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Parents can only give [their children] good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” – Anne Frank
“Over your wine do not talk much to display your learning; for you will utter bilious stuff.” – Epictetus
“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.” – George Eliot
“Our characters are the result of our conduct.” – Aristotle
“Our characters are refined and tried by fire and when we have gone through the furnace, we emerge as pure gold and silver.” – Edward Dunedin
“Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.” – H. Jackson Brown
“Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life.” – John C. Geikie
“Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.” – William Shakespeare, King Richard II
“Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted.” – Alfred Adler
“Men of few words are the best men.” – William Shakespeare
“Men may be divided almost any way we please, but I have found the most useful to be made between those who devote their lives to conjugating the verb to be and those who spend their lives conjugating the verb to have.” – Sydney Harris
“Many men and women enjoy popular esteem, not because they are known, but because they are not known.” – Nicholas Chamfort
“Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Man only succeeds in life by governing his character or by forging one.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” – Will Rogers
“A reputation for good judgment, for fair dealing, for truth, and for rectitude, is itself a fortune.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.” – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“A person of character knows the difference between right and wrong and always tries to do the right thing for the right reason.” – Michael Josephson
“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth… Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits, which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind-elements operate in shaping his character, circumstances, and destiny.” – James Allen
True Character Quotes
“You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” – Paul McCartney
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, fix your thoughts on such things.” – St. Paul, Philippians 4:8
“What a person says and does in ordinary moments when no one is looking reveals more about true character than grand actions taken while in the spotlight. Our true character is revealed by normal, consistent, everyday attitudes and behavior, not by self-conscious words or deeds or rare acts of moral courage.” – Michael Josephson Ambien online
“This above all: to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou canst not then be false to any man.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” – G.K. Chesterton
“The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.” – Ann Landers
“The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb of innocence. . . . Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of adventurous youth.” – Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr
“Suffering is the true test of life.” – David Goggins
“It’s really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are. Of course, it’s the opposite that’s true: What we are ultimately determines what we do!.” – Fred Rogers
“Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Some are blessed with physical and mental facility, but none are more prized than the one who has developed true character.” – Greg Henry Quinn
“If you wanna see the true character of person watch the way they treat someone who can’t do anything for them.” – Kanye West
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln
“If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.” – Robert South
“How important is the heart! It is there that character is formed. It alone holds the secrets of true success. Its treasures are priceless — but they can be stolen.” – Charles Swindoll
“Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work.” – Orison Swett Marden
“A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.” – Charlie Chaplin
“You’re offended when you fear that it might be true.” – Naval Ravikant
“The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” – Thomas B. Macaulay
“The measure of a man is what he does with power.” – Plato
“The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.” – Peter Nivio Zarlenga
“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The lawyer’s conscience like his law is a learned thing, not intuitive, untutored, abstract; it is not everyman’s conscience. Applied to a specific case, the lawyer’s conscience is a reflection of an educated sense of justice under law and of a thorough awareness of a lawyer’s role in the system of continuing justice.” – Professor David Mellinkoff
“The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable.” – Michel de Montaigne
“Lincoln described character is a tree and reputation as its shadow. The tree will always be what it is but the shadow we see depends on where we stand and the angle of the light.” – Michael Josephson
“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
“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
“Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.” – Jocko Willink
“Knowledge will give you power, but character earns respect.” – Bruce Lee
“Just because you lost me as a friend doesn’t mean you gained me as an enemy. I still wanna see you eat. Just not at my table.” – Ed Latimore
“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” – Roy Disney
“It’s easy to have emotional control when everything is going well. It’s only during stormy seas that we see who are the real sailors.” – Ed Latimore
“It’s all in how you perceive it. You’re in control. You can dispense with misperception at will, like rounding the point.” – Marcus Aurelius
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.” – Warren Buffett
“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.” – Jane Austen
“It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
“Arguing with a fool proves there are two.” – Doris M. Smith
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” – Dale Carnegie
“An important part of who you are is what you want to be.” – Amy Kampert
“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” – Sophocles
“All cruelty springs from weakness.” – Seneca
“According as a man acts and walks in the path of life, so he becomes. He that does good becomes good; he that does evil becomes evil. By pure actions he becomes pure; by evil actions he becomes evil.” – Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (c 600—300 BC)
“Ability can take you the top, but it takes character to keep you there.” – Zig Ziglar
“A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.” – Michel de Montaigne
“A Stoic is determined, but not obstinate. A Stoic controls what they can, recognizes they cannot change that which is out of their control, but that they can change their mind… because they are open to learning they were wrong or misinformed.” – Ryan Holiday
“A simple strategy to save you so many headaches: don’t care about winning trivial arguments. Someone says something you disagree with? Smile, nod, and move on to more important things. Life is short. Not caring about having the last word will save you so much time.” – James Clear
Bad Character Quotes
“There is not good or bad but as thinking makes them to be.” – Shakespeare
“The perfect man is 80% badass and 20% sweetheart. While the perfect woman is 80% sweetheart and 20% badass.” – Taylor Burrowes
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
“The two most precious things this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live as not to be afraid to die.” – Cotton
“The truth of the matter is that you ALWAYS know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.” – General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
“The habits of feeling, action and judgment that comprise good character depend on personal self-discipline and powerful aspiration to become a good person, all of which must be drawn from within.” – Edwin Delattre
“The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chambers of the soul.” – David O. McKay
“The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.” – Benjamin Haydon
“The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from, and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult, ethical controversies of the day. First things first. And planting the ideas of virtue, of good traits in the young, comes first. In the moral life, as in life itself, we take one step at a time. Every field has its complexities and controversies. And so does ethics. And every field has its basics. So too with values.” – William J. Bennett
“The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character and the second thing is education.” – George Horace Lorimer
“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” – Harper Lee
“Put your family in order.” – Jordan Peterson
“Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.” – Solon
“Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man.” – Napoleon
“Purely intellectual development without commensurate internal character development makes as much sense as putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs. Yet all too often in the academic world, that’s exactly what we do by not focusing on the character development of young people.” – Steven Covey
“Primary greatness is on the inside. It’s about character.” – Stephen Covey
“Power really is a test of character. In the hands of a person of integrity, it is of tremendous benefit; in the hands of a tyrant, it causes terrible destruction.” – John C. Maxwell
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton
“Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.” – Elmer G. Letterman
“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.” – Hermann Hesse
“It is their character indeed that makes people who they are. But it is by reason of their actions that they are happy or the reverse.” – Aristotle
“It is not what he had, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is.” – Henri Frederic Amiel
“It is not the most distinguished achievements that men’s virtues or vices may be best discovered; but very often an action of small note. A casual remark or joke shall distinguish a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.” – Plutarch
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.” – Aeschylus
“It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“It is easy enough to arouse in a listener a desire for what is honorable; for in every one of us nature has laid the foundations or sown the seeds of the virtues. We are born to them all, all of us, and when a person comes along with the necessary stimulus, then those qualities of the personality are awakened, so to speak, from their slumber.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4 BC-65 AD)
“Better to be a man of character than a man of means.” – Irish Proverbs
“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Be the first to laugh at your own blunder, and no one will laugh at you.” – Publilius Syrus
“Be not fond therefore of praise, but seek virtue that leads to it.” – William Penn
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” – John Wooden
“Be grateful for the joy of life. Be glad for the privilege of work. Be thankful for the opportunity to give and serve. Good work is the great character-builder, the sweetener of life, the maker of destiny. Let the spirit of your work be right, and whether your task be great or small you will then have the satisfaction of knowing it is worthwhile.” – Grenville Kleiser
“Be an independent thinker at all times, and ignore anyone who attempts to define you in a limiting way.” – Sherry Argov
“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.” – Walter Anderson
“Babies are born with neither good nor bad character. Normal people — as they grow, learn and are trained — develop better or worse dispositions and habits of conduct.” – Edwin Delattre
“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” – Andrew Carnegie
Your Character Quotes
“You choose your socks by their color, but your friends by their character.”
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.” – Marie Curie
“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” – Henry David Thoreau
“You can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise.” – Seneca
“You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans.” – Ronald Reagan
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“You become more attractive when you don’t need love. You become richer when you don’t need money. You become more convincing when you don’t need to impress.”
“You are your most important critic and your conscience your most important judge of character.” – Denis Waitley
“Without trials, manhood can never be built.” – Fateh Singh
“Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.” – John Wooden
“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.” – Cyril Connolly
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” – Albert Einstein
“Wherever man goes to dwell, his character goes with him.” – African Proverb
“Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act if all the world were looking at you, and act accordingly.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people’s characters.” – Margaret Halsey
“The superior man is impassive: praise him or condemn him, he always carries.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.” – Blaise Pascal
“The Stoic wise man may tremble in the face of danger. What matters is what he does next.” – Donald Robertson
“The smarter you get, the less you react when it isn’t worth it.”
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” – Hannah Arendt
“The real gentlemen is one who is gentle in everything, at least in everything that depends on himself – in carriage, temper, constructions, aims, desires. He is mild, calm, quiet, even temperate – not hasty in judgment, not exorbitant in ambition, not overbearing, not proud, not rapacious, not oppressive.” – Hare
“The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The crown and glory of life is character. It is the noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and an estate in the general good-will; dignifying every station, and exalting every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and secures all the honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tell; for it is the result of proved honor, rectitude, and consistency–qualities which, perhaps more than any other, command the general confidence and respect of mankind.” – Samuel Smiles
“The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people cruel and bitter.” – Somerset Maugham
“The choices that make a significant difference in our lives are the tough ones. They’re not often fun or easy, but they’re the ones we have to make, and each is a deliberate step toward better understanding who we really are.” – Alexandra Stoddard
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.” – Epictetus
“Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” – Cervantes, Don Quixote
“Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.” – John C. Maxwell
“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
“Somehow it must be made plain that the lawyer’s moral judgment is not for hire, that there are occasions when the lawyer . . . is under a duty to act as a person of independent ethical concern with obligations not only to his client’s interests but also to fairness and justice in the management of affairs.” – Professor Harry Jones
“Someday, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long-continued process.” – Phillips Brooks
“Nothing is more important for our personal happiness and for the good of society than acquiring the dispositions and habits which constitute good character.” – Tom Lickona
“Nothing deflates so fast as a punctured reputation.” – Thomas Robert Dewar
“Not to be driven this way and that, but always behave with justice and see things as they are.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Not taking things personally is a superpower.” – James Clear
“No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.” – Lord Acton
“No one becomes depraved all at once.” – Juvenal
“No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.” – William James
“No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.” – William Penn
“No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Never does a man portray his character more vividly than when proclaiming the character of another.” – Winston Churchill
“Neither heredity nor environment determine character. But whether we give in to or overcome the negative messages we are exposed to as we wend our way through life is often determined by whether our parents, teachers, mentors and friends exposed us to good examples and morally inspiring ideas.” – Michael Josephson
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
“My honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.” – William Shakespeare
“Most people say that it’s the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.” – Albert Einstein
“A man’s character is his fate.” – Heraclitus
“A man with no enemies is a man with no character.” – Paul Newman
“A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.” – Charles de Gaulle
“A man must become reconciled to his lot, must complain of it as little as possible, and must lay hold of whatever good it may had.” – Seneca
“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” – James Allen
“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.” – Winston Churchill
“A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.” – Lord Jeffrey
“A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.” – King Solomon, Proverbs 22:1
“A good name is better than precious ointment.” – Hebrew Bible. Ecclesiastes7:1.
“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when flowers have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” – Charles H. Spurgeon
“A boy knows, a man does.” – Carlos Del Valle
Strong Character Quotes
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Kahlil Gibran
“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – Frederick Douglass
“I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.” – Rita Mero
“Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak, and at last some crisis shows us what we have become.” – Bishop Westcott
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“We describe the character of a person in reference to moral judgments about the worthiness of a person. Thus, to have a strong, great or honorable character is to be a person of merit, worthy of admiration and honor.” – Michael Josephson
“To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“There never was a strong character that was not made strong by discipline of the will; there never was a strong people that did not rank subordination and discipline among the signal virtues. Subjection to moods is the mark of a deteriorating morality. There is no baser servitude than that of the man whose caprices are his masters, and a nation composed of such men could not long preserve its liberties.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Throughout our history, wise thinkers and average men-on-the-street have recognized that it is character that counts. Heraclitus wrote, Character is destiny. The success or failure of character formation determines the destiny of each of us. It determines, too, the destiny of our nation. If each of us is to be fully human, then, we need to form strong characters.” – Tom Lickona
“The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, ‘If you guarantee me six things on your part I shall guarantee you Paradise. Speak the truth when you talk, keep a promise when you make it, when you are trusted with something fulfill your trust, avoid sexual immorality, lower your eyes, and restrain your hands from injustice.” – Abu Hurayrah
“The person of intellect is lost unless they unite with energy of character. When we have the lantern of Diogenes we must also have his staff.” – Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort
“The pain and boredom we experience in the initial stage of learning a skill toughens our minds.” – Robert Greene
“The only time you realize you have a reputation is when you’re not living up to it.” – Jose Iturbi
“The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.” – Marcus Aurelius
“The only real revolution is the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character. The only real emancipation is individual.” – Will and Ariel Durant
“Society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.” – John Adams
“Sincerity is impossible unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretense of it saps the very foundation of character.” – James Russell Lowell
“Silence is the cornerstone of character.” – Teton Sioux
“Show me a man with a tattoo and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past.” – Jack London
“Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning will take care of itself.” – Coach Paul (Bear) Bryant
“Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and respect of self, in turn, is the chief element in courage.” – Thucydides
“Self-command is the main elegance.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.” – Epictetus
“Scars fade with time. And the ones that never go away, well, they build character, maturity, caution.” – Erin McCarthy
“Routine becomes character.” – Jack Butcher
“Reputation is what strangers think of you. Character is what your friends think of you.” – Ricky Gervais
“Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and the angels know of us.” – Thomas Paine
“Reputation is for time; character is for eternity.” – J.B. Gough
“Reputation is a reward, to be sure, but it is really the beginning, not the end of endeavor. It should not be the signal for a let-down, but rather, a reminder that the standards which won recognition can never again be lowered. From him who gives much – much is forever after expected.” – Alvan Macauley
“It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.” – Alfred Adler
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” – Mark Twain
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.” – Andre Gide
“It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.” – Seneca
“It can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise it cannot harm you – inside or out.” – Marcus Aurelius
“It can be said that any one person’s overall character and demeanor is but a reflection of the sum total of his or her thoughts.” – Beau Norton
“It can be frustrating and even frightening to observe the success which sometimes comes to outlaws and rogues who seem to refute notions of universal justice. Every time we see a villain enjoying the fruits of dishonorable acts we find ourselves doubting the value of character and the validity of the virtues we have been taught. Thus, it takes character to believe in character, but that belief is always rewarded, often by material success, but always by the esteem it earns from those who matter.” – Michael Josephson
“Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil–the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.” – William George Jordan
“In the end, it is the person you become, not the things you achieve, that is most important.” – Les Brown
“In the end you should always do the right thing even if it’s hard.” – Nicholas Sparks
“In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.” – Aristotle
“Human reason grows rich by self-conquest.” – Publilius Syrus
“Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the intimated purpose, express character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“How many people don’t even know your name. How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now – and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt. That to be remembered is worthless. Life fame. Like everything.” – Marcus Aurelius
“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?.” – Epictetus
“How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.” – Henry David Thoreau
“How a people play the game shows something of their character; how they lose shows all of it.”
“Hire for character, train for skills.” – Michael Josephson
“He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.” – Michel de Montaigne
“He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.” – Chinese proverb
“He is happy, whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent, who can suit his temper to any circumstances.” – David Hume
“Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.” – Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
“Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.” – Criss Jami
“Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes. Class bespeaks an aristocracy unrelated to ancestors or money. Some extremely wealthy people have no class at all, while others who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it. Class is real. You can’t fake it. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not attempt to look better by making others look worse. Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because he is comfortable with himself. If you have class, you’ve got it made. If you don’t have class, no matter what else you have, it won’t make up for it.” – Ann Landers
“Civilization is first of all a moral thing. Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, and virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization.” – Henri Frederic Amiel
“Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.” – Wayne Dyer
“Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.” – William James
“Choose rather to punish your appetites than to be punished through them.” – Epictetus
“Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.” – Seneca
Character Assassination Quotes
“When your mind is not complaining and is responsible, courageous and confident; you become inexplicably beautiful.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
“When you walk the walk, whether successful or not, you feel more indifferent and robust to people’s opinion, freer, more real.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“When you think you’ve been injured, apply this rule: If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong.” – Marcus Aurelius
“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.” – German Proverb
“Whatever you lend let it be your money, and not your name. Money, you may get again, and, if not, you may contrive to do without it; name once lost you cannot get again.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” – Eckhart Tolle
“What we know matters but who we are matters more.” – Brené Brown
“What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can only get by practice.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“What should we work for? Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar; flowing like water from the same source and spring.” – Marcus Aurelius
“What most counts is not merely to live, but to live right.” – Socrates
“What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.” – A.A. Milne
“The character and qualifications of the leader are reflected in the men he selects, develops and gathers around him. Show me the leader and I will know his men. Show me the men and I will know their leader.” – Arthur W. Newcomb
“The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.” – Abigail van Buren
“Ten Rules of Thomas Jefferson: 1. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. / 2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. / 3. Never spend your money before you have it. / 4. Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will never be dear to you. / 5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold. / 6. Never repent of having eaten too little. / 7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly. / 8. Don’t let the evils which have never happened cost you pain. / 9. Always take things by their smooth handle. / 10. When angry, count to ten before you speak; if very angry, count to one hundred.” – Thomas Jefferson
“In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ask. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.” – Marcus Aurelius
“In short term games, skills are more important than character. In long term games, character dominates.” – Johnny Uzan
“In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters as they are.” – Gamaliel Bradford
“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“If, of course, your action is wrong, just don’t do it at all, but if it’s right, why be afraid of people whose criticism is off the mark?.” – Epictetus
“If your reputation can’t absorb a few blows, it wasn’t worth anything in the first place.” – Ryan Holiday
“If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself.” – Woodrow Wilson
“If you want to know what a person’s character, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.” – Proverb
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” – J.K. Rowling
“If you pay too much attention to your reputation, you could lose your character.” – Michael Josephson
“If you create an act, you create a habit. If you create a habit, you create a character. If you create a character, you create a destiny.” – Andre Maurois
“If you can’t treat someone with dignity and respect – then you need to get out.” – Jay B. Silveria
“If to do good were easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.” – William Shakespeare
“If someone lacks character, “Be yourself!” is the worst advice you can give.” – Jeremiah Say
“Get to know two things about a man – how he earns his money and how he spends it – and you have the clue to his character, for you have a searchlight that shows up the inmost recesses of his soul. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.” – Robert James McCracken
“Get out there and do what you’re supposed to do whether you feel like it or not.” – Jocko Willink
“Generosity of character is important. It builds confidence by reminding you that you are a decent human being, and that you deserve any good things which might come your way.” – John Franz
“Fortune does not change anyone; it only unmasks them.” – Henry O. Dormann
“For it is better to die of hunger and so to be released from grief and fear than to live in abundance with perturbation.” – Epictetus
“For example at a banquet do not say how a man ought to eat, but eat as you ought to eat.” – Epictetus
“Fools are more healthy than the so-called wise. They live in the moment and they know that they are fools, so they are not worried about what others think about them.” – Osho
“Fame is what you have taken, / Character’s what you give; / When to this truth you waken, / Then you begin to live.” – Bayard Taylor
“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” – Epictetus
“Don’t be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself. Someone has done wrong… to himself. Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself?” – Marcus Aurelius
“Discipline is the root of all good qualities.” – Jocko Wilink
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.” – Seneca
“Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.” – R.J. Palacio
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” – Maya Angelou
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.” – August Wilson
“Confidence isn’t the ability to make everyone like you, but rather, to feel comfortable if no one likes you.” – Paul Domenick
“Confessions may be good for the soul but they are bad for the reputation.” – Thomas Robert Dewar
Character Building Quotes
“When it comes to building character, wealth, good looks, athletic ability and even a high IQ are more likely to be impediments than advantages.” – Michael Josephson
“To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.” – Michel de Montaigne
“If we don’t invest now in building character into children, we will surely invest more tomorrow in trying to repair adults.” – Michael Josephson
“Everyone knows that weeds eat out the life of the garden and of the productive fields. It’s like that in the building and developing of character. No one knows our own faults and tendencies better than we do ourselves, so that it is up to each one of us to keep the weeds out, and to keep all growth vigorous and fruitful.” – George Matthew Adams
“Character is the foundation stone upon which one must build to win respect. Just as no worthy building can be erected on a weak foundation, so no lasting reputation worthy of respect can be built on a weak character. Without character, all effort to attain dignity is superficial, and results are sure to be disappointing.” – R. C. Samsel
“We judge our own character by our best intentions and most noble acts, but we will be judged by our last worst act.” – Michael Josephson
“We do not need more intellectual power, we need more spiritual power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character.” – Calvin Coolidge
“We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.” – Socrates
“We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.” – Cato The Elder
“We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” – Aristotle
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its ever so little scar…Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.” – William James
“We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.” – John Locke
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” – Lao Tzu
“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.” – Stephen R. Covey
“Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“One’s character is one’s habitual way of behaving. We all have patterns of behavior or habits, and often we are quite unaware of them. When Socrates urged us to Know thyself, he clearly was directing us to come to know our habitual ways of responding to the world around us.” – Tom Lickona, Eric Schaps and Catherine Lewis
“One who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and at the right time, possesses character worthy of our trust and admiration.” – Aristotle
“One of the troubles of our times is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.” – W. H. Auden
“One must judge men, not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them.” – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“One can acquire everything in solitude except character.” – Henri Stendhal
“On your worst day, you live better than many people on their best. Stop complaining and have some perspective and gratitude.” – Ed Latimore
“I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.” – Hermann Hesse
“I realized that if what we call human nature can be changed, then absolutely anything is possible. From that moment, my life changed.” – Shirley MacLaine
“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King Jr
“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” – Abraham Lincoln
“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
“I have a dream…that one day my four little children, will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skins, but by the content of their character.” – Martin L. King, Jr.
“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.” – Oscar Wilde
“I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.” – Pietro Aretino
“Humble in victory; noble in defeat. Always show class.”
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,/ Is the immediate jewel of their souls;/ Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;/ ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name/ Robs me of that which not enriches him,/ And makes me poor indeed.” – Shakespeare, Othello
“Good character is the single most important attribute of a successful and worthy life.” – Michael Josephson
“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.” – Heraclitus
“Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece – by thought, choice, courage, and determination.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr
“Good character is more important than wealth, good looks, popularity and even education. These things do not guarantee happiness and often they become obstacles to developing good character.” – Michael Josephson
“Good and bad men are each less so than they seem.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Character And Integrity Quotes
“As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity, control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace. You will define yourself from within, rather than by people’s opinions or by comparisons to others.” – Stephen Covey
“A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity.” – Baltasar Gracian
“Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.” – Jacqueline Bisset
“Beware of people who constantly assert their integrity and honor. People of character don’t have to point it out.” – Michael Josephson
“When we say someone has good character we are expressing the opinion that his or her nature is defined by worthy traits like integrity, courage, and compassion. No one is born with good character; it’s not a hereditary trait. And it isn’t determined by a single noble act. Character is established by conscientious adherence to moral values, not by lofty rhetoric or good intentions.” – Michael Josephson
“What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even, than what he condemns, of his character, information and abilities.” – Hare
“What a man’s mind can create, man’s character should control.” – Thomas Edison
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” – Albert Einstein
“We’re either getting better or we’re getting worse.” – David Goggins
“We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“We must not only put up with it, but love it.” – Marcus Aurelius
“We must live our lives to a higher standard. The standard we set for ourselves must makes us feel uncomfortable. If the standard you set for yourself allows you to feel comfortable, you must re-evaluate the bar you set for yourself.” – David Goggins
“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“We judge our own character by our best intentions and our most noble acts, but others will judge us by our last worst act.” – Michael Josephson
“Of course, our assessment of a person’s character is an opinion and it isn’t always right. Abraham Lincoln recognized an important difference between character and reputation. “Character,” he said “is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. Because the shape of a shadow is determined by the angle of light and the perspective of the observer, it’s not a perfect image of the tree. In the same way, reputation is not always an accurate reflection of character. Some people derive more benefit from their reputation than they deserve; others are better than their reputations. Still, reputation matters. It determines how others think of us and treat us and whether we are held in high or low esteem. That’s why many people and organizations are so preoccupied with their image that they actually undermine their character by concealing or creating facts to make them look better. It’s ironic that reputations are often the result of dishonesty or the lack of accountability.” – Michael Josephson
“Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.” – Henry Clay
“Now I know better, so I do better.” – Maya Angelou
“Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Nothing is more important for the public wealth than to form and train youth in wisdom and virtue. Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures – character.” – Harry Truman
“Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience.” – Michel de Montaigne
“Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. you are what you repeatedly do.” – Shaquille O’Neal
“Essential characteristics of a gentleman: The will to put himself in the place of others; the horror of forcing others into positions from which he would himself recoil; and the power to do what seems to him to be right without considering what others may say or think.” – John Galsworthy
“Emotional maturity is ability to stick to a job and to struggle through until it is finished; to endure unpleasantness, discomfort, and frustration; to give more than is asked for or required; to size things up and make independent decisions; to work under authority and to cooperate with others; to defer to time, other persons, and to circumstances.” – Edward A. Strecker
“Education has for its object the formation of character.” – Herbert Spencer