Character Quotes

9624 quotes by 4950 authors

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or… — Helen Gahagan Douglas
The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a… — Mary McCarthy
You put on a face for the public. The face isn't false; it's just another side of you. If it were false, you couldn't last.… — James Garner
Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word. — Lord Acton
Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another. — William Hazlitt
Conscience is the frame of character, and love is the covering for it. — Henry Ward Beecher
A monarch frequently represents his subjects better that an elected assembly; and if he is a good judge of character he is likely to have… — William Ralph Inge
What a man is depends on his character; but what he does, and what we think of what he does, depends on his circumstances. — George Bernard Shaw
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad. — Plutarch
Thus strength is afforded by good and thorough customs, thus is learnt the subjection of the individual, and strenuousness of character becomes a birth gift… — Friedrich Nietzsche
By the age of three, the child has already laid down the foundations of his personality as a human being, and only then does he… — Maria Montessori
For a great nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious training; religion of character is so apt to be invaded. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many… — Joseph Addison
Every epoch has its character determined by the way its population reacts to the material events which they encounter. — Alfred North Whitehead
Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows. — Thorstein Veblen
The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a… — Stendhal
Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character. — Walter Lippmann
Repose and cheerfulness is the badge of the gentleman; repose in energy. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who Wrote These Character Quotes

4,950 authors contributed a total of 9,624 Character Quotes, led by these top contributors: