quotations about character
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
Living Words
Decided ends are sure signs of a decided character.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
Your character becomes distorted
In the quest for an identity
Why hide behind the truth
Of what you are?
NAPALM DEATH
"Blind to the Truth", From Enslavement to Obliteration
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
MALCOLM FORBES
attributed, It Happened Last Night, 1972
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.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims
Character is power, character is influence, and he who has character, though he may have nothing else, has the means of being eminently useful, not only to his immediate friends, but to society, to the church of God and to the world.
PETER EDWARD KERN
Kern Genealogy
Character calls forth character.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Many people allow others to mold and influence their lives. These people are negative. Strong and positive people will mold their own character and make their circumstances and environment whatever they desire.
WALTER MATTHEWS
Human Life from Many Angles
If one could only tear down his character, as old buildings are torn down, and build it up anew, as these are rebuilt! And so, in effect, it can be. A noble property of character is, that it is susceptible of improvement.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Our characters are the result of our conduct.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to the observer doth thy history
Fully unfold.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Measure for Measure
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.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Essays
The difficulty of repairing character tempts men sometimes to neglect it; and the ease with which it is at other times established, is the true reason of its frequent default.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Character is what a person is in the dark.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs
The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct, betray his opinion of your character.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
'Tis from high Life high Characters are drawn.
ALEXANDER POPE
Moral Essays
And so it becomes perfectly clear that in the heavenly country, where all character is like a crystal sea, everybody can see to the bottom of everybody, and everybody finds delight in the transparency, because in that country there is unlimited human communion, and no one harbors anything which he wants to have concealed.
DR. JOWETT
Continent, January 4, 1917