Character Quotes
Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.Johann von Goethe
People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day
What makes a good follower The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination.Warren Bennis
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
Character is what can do without success.Ralph Waldo Emerson
It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize our age.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity.Arnold Toynbee
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.
Character is power.Booker T. Washington
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love Born out of concern for all beings.The Buddha
To be a book - Collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.Robertson Davies, "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks".
Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.William Hazlitt, on the Pleasure of Hating
If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself.D. L. Moody
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.Patrick Overton
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.Samuel Johnson
Sow an act... reap a habit Sow a habit... reap a character Sow a character... reap a destiny.George Dana Boardman
The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious and may revolutionize a whole town.Eleanor H. Porte
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
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
The influence of individual character extends from generation to generation.Macleod
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".
Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.Elihu Burritt
The discipline of desire is the background of character.John Locke
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
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
Character is much easier kept than recovered.Thomas Paine
Education has for its object the formation of character.Herbert Spence
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
A person without character is just as body without soul.Ranjan
In men of the highest character and noblest genius there is to be found an insatiable desire for honour, command, power, and glory.Cicero
