Character Quotes
Most popular character quotes
The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
Every man has three characters: that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.
People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.
Character does not change. Opinions alter, but character is only developed.
I begin to find that too good a character is inconvenient.
When a man thinks he is reading the character of another, he is often unconsciously betraying his own.
We must have a weak spot or two in our character before we can love others much.
Personality has the power to open many doors, but it's character that keeps them open.
Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.
Whatever the self describes, describes the self.
People don't seem to realize that their opinions of the world are also a confession of character.
In great matters people show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are.
We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.
Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth?
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.
You are what you are when nobody is looking.
![The greatest legacy you can pass on to them [your children and grandchildren] is the legacy of your character and your faith. - Billy Graham quote.](/img/q/75/1675A-the-greatest-legacy-you-can-pass-them-your-children-grandchildren-billy-graham.png)
The greatest legacy you can pass on to them [your children and grandchildren] is the legacy of your character and your faith.
Society affects to estimate men by their talents, but really feels and knows them by their character.
No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character.
A man of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given.
Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
It is to be lamented that great characters are seldom without a blot.
Rest assured that literary education is no good without character.
The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability he has.
Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all; only our characters are steadfast, not our gold.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Occasions do not make a man either strong or weak, but they show what he is.
The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.
Character and ideals are catching. When you associate with men who aspire to the highest and best, you expose yourself to the qualities that make men great.
A man may have no bad habits and have worse.
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.
Integrity has no need of rules.
We get so much in the habit of wearing a disguise before others that we eventually appear disguised before ourselves.
No man, for any considerable time, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
It is much easier to be a hero than a gentleman.
Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul.
Character is a strange blending of flinty strength and pliable warmth.
No man knows his true character until he has run out of gas, purchased something on the installment plan, and raised an adolescent.
Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.
Everyone journeys through character as well as through time. The person one becomes depends on the person one has been.
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
You can measure a man by the opposition it takes to discourage him.
We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.
The severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.
Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.
The truth about a man is, first of all, what it is that he keeps hidden.
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
How a man plays the game shows something of his character; how he loses shows all of it.
You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.
Character is what you know you are, not what others think you are.
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
Reputation is character minus what you've been caught doing.
The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.
You can find on the outside only what you possess on the inside.
In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape Nuts on principle.
One of the best ways to measure people is to watch the way they behave when something free is offered.
Say not you know a man entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.
Dollars have never been known to produce character, and character will never be produced by money.
Characters live to be noticed. People with character notice how they live.
In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
Ten thousand bad traits cannot make a single good one any the less good.
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.
Some people strengthen the society just by being the kind of people they are.
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.
Would you like you, if you met you?
There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character.
Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition, such as lifting weights, we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.
You can straighten a worm, but the crook is in him and only waiting.
It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific nation, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.
A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.
Happiness is not the end of life, character is.
In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass, and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
The more peculiarly his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
Strength of character does not consist solely in having powerful feelings, but in maintaining one's balance in spite of them.
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.
I know sage, wormwood, and hyssop, but I can't smell character unless it stinks.
There is a kind of sweetness of character that stinks.
Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.
It is only in romances that people undergo a sudden metamorphosis. In real life, even after the most terrible experiences, the main character remains exactly the same.
A man's character is most evident by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or reciprocate.
It is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character that he should be mastered by love.
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.
Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
A man's fortunes are the fruit of his character.
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete character.
There is an old-fashioned word for the body of skills that emotional intelligence represents: character.
A family library is a breeding-place for character.
Character demonstrates itself in trifles.
Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits.
To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.
Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much.
The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he is born.
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.
I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!"
It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
One stumble is enough to deface the character of an honorable life.
Character doesn't just count. It is the password to every code you will ever need to crack.
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.
A man's character is revealed by his speech.
Character is what you are in the dark.
Character is the architecture of the being.
I think character never changes; the Acorn becomes an Oak, which is very little like an Acorn to be sure, but it never becomes an Ash.
Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution.
Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard. It is in insignificant matters, and in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feeling of others, and denies nothing to itself.
A good character is the best tombstone.
It is only an error in judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to stick to it.
It is by character and not by intellect the world is won.
There is a nobler character than that which is merely incorruptible. It is the character which acts as an antidote and preventive of corruption.
True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity.
If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig.
Contradictions in human character are one of its most consistent notes.
The man of character finds an especial attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
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.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
We must have passed through life unobservantly, if we have never perceived that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others.
You can't truthfully explain your smallest action without fully revealing your character.
Certainly, it is a world of scarcity. But the scarcity is not confined to iron ore and arable land. The most constricting scarcities are those of character and personality.
You will never know for sure if someone is an asshole until he becomes rich.
Qualities of good character and integrity make an enormous difference in achieving success.
