Character - Quotes

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble. - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. - Seneca

A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts. - James Allen

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow. - Henry Ward Beecher

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. For your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. - Fred Shero

Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your word. - Lord Chesterfield Stanhope

By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Character building begins in infancy and continues until death. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness. - Faith Baldwin

Character calls forth character. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurturing for growth and development. - Unknown

Character contributes to good looks. It fortifies a person as youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a person good looking. - Unknown

Character has more effect than anything else. Let a number of loud-talking men take up a particular question, and one man of character, of known integrity and beauty of soul, will outweigh them all in his influence. - E. H. Chapin

Character is habit long continued. - Greek Proverb

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 not made in a crisis -- it is only exhibited. - Robert Freeman

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids. - Aristotle

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

Character is what a person is in the dark. - Grenville Kleiser

Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway. - Mignon McLaughlin

Character isn’t inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. - Helen Gahagan Douglas

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones. - Phillips Brooks

Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness. -Yousuf Karsh

Character, like wine or cold tea in a bottle, takes its shape from the environment. - Austin O’Malley

Concerning character, we sometimes judge of the whole by its parts. - Norman MacDonald

Deeds, not words, are the demonstration and test of character. - William Archer

Every character is in some respects uniform, and in others inconsistent; and it is only by the study both of the uniformity and inconsistency, and a comparison of them with each other, that the knowledge of man is acquired. - Fluke Greville 

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no other is, and to do what no other can do. - William Ellery Channing

Every man is the architect of his own character. - George Dana Boardman

Every man professes a thorough knowledge of his own character and disposition; yet it is impossible for anyone to know himself perfectly: pride conceals much of our nature, and conceit intercepts the rules of inquiry. - Norman MacDonald 

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

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. - John Luther

If a man’s character is to be abused, say what you will, there’s nobody like a relation to do the business. - William Makepeace Thackery

In books and in life, you need to read several pages before someone's true character is revealed. - Gail Carson Levine

It is an error to suppose that no man understands his own character. Most persons know even their failings very well, only they persist in giving them names different from those usually assigned by the rest of the world; and they compensate for this mistake by naming, at first sight, with singular accuracy, those very same failings in others. - Arthur Helps

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be. - Arthur Helps

It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one; but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . . - Samuel Smiles

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln

Nothing reveals a man’s character more fully than the spirit in which he bears his limitations. - Hamilton Wright Mabie

Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth. - Eleanor Roosevelt 

Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life. - John Cunningham Geikie

Our characters are the result of our conduct. - Aristotle

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open. - Elmer G. Letterman

Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. - Og Mandino

Spend money to make character, But don't spend character to make money. - Kashif Amin

Success is always temporary. When all is said and done, the only thing you’ll have left is your character. - Vince Gill

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

The character of a man is known from his conversations. - Menander

The highest qualities of character must be earned. - Lyman Abbott

The greatest architecture is building character. - Lewis F. Korns

The least of the virtues adds to the perfection of the character. It is with the finest characters as it is with the finest woods and marbles – the polishing hand is still needed to bring out the veins of beauty and of grace. - Christian Nestell Bovee

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. - Lord Macaulay Thomas Babington

The true test of character is how we behave when we do not know what to do. - John Holt

The world will find out that part of your character which concerns it: that which especially concerns yourself, it will leave for you to discover. - Arthur Helps

There are often two characters of a man – that which is believed in by people in general, and that which he enjoys among his associates. It is supposed, but vainly, that the latter is always a more accurate approximation to the truth, whereas in reality it is often a part which he performs to admiration: while the former is the result of certain minute traits, certain inflexions of voice and countenance, which cannot be discussed, but are felt as it were instinctively by his domestics and by the outer world. The impressions arising from these slight circumstances he is able to efface from the minds of his constant companions, or from habit they have ceased to observe them. - Arthur Helps

There are sometimes beauties in a character which would never have appeared but for a defect, and defects which would never have appeared but for a beauty. - Fluke Greville

There is something in the character of every man which cannot be broken in – the skeleton of his character; and to try to alter this is like training a sheep for draught purposes. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Those who assume a character which does not belong to them, only make themselves ridiculous. - Aesop

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character. - Aristotle

To murder character is as truly a crime as to murder the body: the tongue of the slanderer is brother to the dagger of the assassin. - Tryon Edwards

We generally turn the sunny side of our character towards the public; the shady side towards home. - Charles Edward Jerningham

We judge nothing so hastily as character, and yet there is nothing over which we should be more cautious … I have always found that the so-called bad people improve on closer acquaintance, while the good fall off. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one. - James A. Froude