quotations and passages on character

Character cannot be developed in ease
and quiet. Only through experiences
of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared,
ambition inspired and success achieved.

Helen Keller

character - character 2

The longer you live the more you realize that forgiveness,
consideration, and kindness are three of the great secrets of life.

Anonymous

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you.
Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight. When we do the best we can,
we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

Helen Keller

Before enlightenment, chop wood,
carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood,
carry water.

Anonymous

Every thought which enters the mind, every word we utter, every deed we perform,
makes its impression upon the inmost fiber of our being and the result of these impressions
is our character. The study of books, of music, or of the fine arts is not essential to a lofty character.
It rests with the worker whether a rude piece of marble shall be squared into a horse-block
or carved into an Apollo, a Psyche, or a Venus di Milo. It is yours, if you choose, to develop
a spiritual form more beautiful than any of these, instinct with immortal life,
refulgent with all the glory of character.

Orison Swett Marden

It is not in the still calm of life, or in the the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. . . . The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending
with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom
and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement
and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

Abigail Adams

The best index to people's character is
(a) how they treat people
who can't do him or her any good, and
(b) how they treat people who can't fight back.

Abigail Van Buren

First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do.

Epictetus

Honesty is the corner stone of character.

Malcolm Forbes

Keep your thoughts right, for as you think, so you are.
Therefore, think only those things that will make
the world better, and you unashamed.

Henry H. Buckley

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

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Four things that we must learn to do
If we would make our record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love our fellowmen sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heaven securely.

Henry van Dyke

The structure of human betterment cannot be built upon foundations
of materialism or business, but upon the bedrock
of individual character in free men and women.

Herbert C. Hoover

My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people:
those who do the work and those who take the credit.
He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.

Indira Gandhi

Be such a person, and live such a life, that if every person were such as you,
and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise.

Phillips Brooks

Let everyone sweep in front of his or her door and the whole world will be clean.

Mother Teresa

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do if you do not act upon them?

The Dhammapada

No longer talk at all about the kind of person
a good person ought to be, but be such.

Marcus Aurelius

Live so that when your children think of
fairness, caring, and integrity,
they think of you.

H. Jackson Browne, Jr.

Every one of us has in him or her a continent of undiscovered character.
Blessed are they who act the Columbus to their own souls.

unattributed

Character may be manifested in
the great moments, but it is made in
the small ones.

Phillips Brooks

Character consists of what you do
on the third and fourth tries.

James Michener

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.

Sydney J. Harris

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build
and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Kurt Vonnegut

Everyone journeys through character as well as through time.
The person one becomes depends on the person one has been.

Dick Francis

Characters live to be noticed.
People with character notice how they live.

Nancy Moser

You can easily judge the character of people
by how they treat those who can do nothing for them.

James D. Miles

You can tell more about people by what they say about others
than you can by what others say about them.

Leo Aikman

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor
intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to
include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong."

Sydney J. Harris

To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second.
To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in all honorable curiosities,
to be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good
of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still
a dear possession in absence or unkindness�these are the gifts of fortune
which money cannot buy, and without which money can buy nothing.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Character is the product of daily, hourly actions, words
and thoughts: daily forgiveness, unselfishness, kindnesses,
sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others,
struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial.
It is these, like the blinding colors in a picture, or the
blending notes of music, which constitute the person.

John MacDuff

Material possessions will rust away, wear away, or depreciate,
but your inner resources--character--must never depreciate.
In seeking success you must also seek fulfillment.
Ask yourself not only what you want to be, but who you want to be.

Elizabeth Dole

Excellence is never an accident.

Jerold Panas

People of character will make themselves worthy of any position they are given.

Mohandas Gandhi

If you make friends with people who are without character,
your own character will tarnish as well.

Anon

If seeds in the black
earth can turn into such
beautiful roses,
what might not the hearts
of humans become
in their long journey
toward the stars?

G.K. Chesterton

The poor Mullah Nasreddin was reduced to living on a diet
of chickpeas and bread, while his neighbor dined on
fancy delicacies provided by the King himself.

One day his neighbor said to Nasreddin: "If you were truly wise
you would learn to flatter the King and obey his every whim
like I do. Then you would not have to live on chickpeas
and bread." Nasreddin answered, "And if you would learn
to live on chickpeas and bread like I do, then you would
not have to flatter the King and obey his every whim."

Traditional Sufi Story

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it,
and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Samuel Johnson