character quotes

Abigail Van Buren: 

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.

Abraham Lincoln: 

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Albert Einstein: 

Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.

Anne Frank: 

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

Benjamin Franklin: 

There never was a good knife made of bad steel.

Cicero: 

It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.

Clarence Darrow: 

With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.

Eleanor Roosevelt: 

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

Faith Baldwin: 

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down within incredible swiftness.

Goethe: 

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

H. Jackson Brown: 

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.

Helen Keller: 

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.

Henry David Thoreau: 

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

Henry David Thoreau: 

How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?

James A. Froude: 

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.

Lillian Hellman: 

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group. [Letter to the US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, 1952]

Margaret Chase Smith: 

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.

Mark Twain: 

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: 

I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream -- a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.

Mohandas Gandhi: 

The Roots of Violence: 
Wealth without work, 
Pleasure without conscience, 
Knowledge without character, 
Commerce without morality, 
Science without humanity, 
Worship without sacrifice, 
Politics without principles.

Rabbi Zusya: 

In the world to come, I shall not be asked, "Why were you not Moses?" I shall be asked, "Why were you not Zusya?"

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions. Our faculties furnish us with no means of arriving at the motive, the character, the secret self. We call the tree good from its fruits, and the man, from his works. (sermon, October 15, 1826)

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 

A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.

Robert Coles: 

Abraham Lincoln did not go to Gettysburg having commissioned a poll to find out what would sell in Gettysburg. There were no people with percentages for him, cautioning him about this group or that group or what they found in exit polls a year earlier. When will we have the courage of Lincoln?

Sam Adams: 

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue.

Thomas Carlyle: 

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance.

Victor Frankl: 

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

Woodrow Wilson: 

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.