Character Quotes, Sayings
Guide your journey of self improvement and unleash your full potential with these wise character quotes and sayings!
Character is the cornerstone of who we are: an internalized moral code. But it’s more than simply being a good person. Character actively guides our choices and actions, building a reputation of dependability and trustworthiness.
Best character quotes
These famous character quotes from philosophers, authors, scientists, and politicians reveal some of what it means to live a life of integrity and compassion. We hope you find them inspirational to your life.
1. Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln
2. Character is destiny.
Heraclitus
3. Character is doing what you don’t want to do but know you should do.
Joyce Meyer
4. The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Plato
5. Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
Charles Dickens
6. Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.
Marcus Aurelius
7. Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures — character.
Harry Truman
Short character quotes
8. Our characters are the result of our conduct.
Aristotle
9. Great necessities call out great virtues.
Abigail Adams
10. We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.
Socrates
11. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
William Shakespeare
Character quotes for students
12. Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
James A. Michener
13. One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.
John Burroughs
14. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.
William Shakespeare
15. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
James Allen
16. Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
Lao Tzu
Character quotes for kids
17. In the end you should always do the right thing even if it’s hard.
Nicholas Sparks
18. Parents can only give [their children] good advice or put them on the right path, but the final form of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
19. When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
W. Somerset Maugham
20. Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.
Ann Landers
21. Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
Heraclitus
Character quotes for athletes
22. A man’s character is not judged after he celebrates a victory, but by what he does when his back is against the wall.
John Cena
23. You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
Maya Angelou
24. Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
John Wooden
Funny character quotes
25. You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.
Ronald Reagan
26. What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.
A.A. Milne
27. If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Character quotes about life
28. Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.
Joan Didion
29. 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
30. Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
Dale Carnegie
31. You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.
Paul McCartney
32. 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.
Helen Keller
About reputation
33. I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.
Abraham Lincoln
34. If you pay too much attention to your reputation, you could lose your character.
Michael Josephson
35. Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.
Faith Baldwin
36. The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.
Japanese proverb
37. 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 Spurgeon
Character quotes about power
38. Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.
Bruce Lee
39. Power really is a test of character. In the hands of a person of integrity, it is of tremendous benefit; in the hands of a tyrant, it causes terrible destruction.
John Maxwell
40. If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy.
Robert Ingersoll
Famous character quotes
41. This above all; to thine own self be true.
William Shakespeare
42. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King Jr.
43. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain
44. Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
Albert Einstein
45. It is better to be alone than in bad company.
George Washington
46. To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt
47. What a man’s mind can create, man’s character should control.
Thomas Edison
From famous authors
48. I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.
Charlotte Brontë
49. Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
Harper Lee
50. People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inspirational character quotes
51. Resilience matters in success. I don’t know how to teach it to you, except for: I hope suffering happens to you… (because) greatness comes from character. And character isn’t formed out of smart people. It’s formed out of people who suffered.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO
52. Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness.
R.J. Palacio
53. 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.
Unknown
About leadership
54. Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.
Dr. William Menninger
55. Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.
Aristotle
56. You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Motivational sayings
57. Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
58. Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.
Henry Clay
Thank you for reading these famous character quotes. Looking for more inspirational quotes and sayings? Try these:
By Greg Johnson | Published 3/15/2024
