The Best Quotes About Character
I've collected thousands of quotes over the past 10+ years.
Here are the best ones I've found so far about character and virtue...
“We have made at least a start in discovering the meaning in human life when we plant shade trees under which we know full well we will never sit.” -D. Elton Trueblood
"I am successful to the degree that who I am and what I live are in alignment." -Susan Scott
"I’ve been preparing for death all my life by the life I've led." -Socrates
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” -Abraham Lincoln
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." -Samuel Johnson
“I will speak ill of no man…and speak all the good I know of everybody.” -Benjamin Franklin
"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." -Roy Disney
"For who that is pleased by virtue can please the crowd? It takes trickery to win popular approval; and you must needs make yourself like unto them; they will withhold their approval if they do not recognize you as one of themselves. However, what you think of yourself is much more to the point than what others think of you. The favor of ignoble men can be won only by ignoble means." -Seneca
"As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him." -Mahatma Gandhi
"Integrity is choosing courage over comfort." -Brené Brown
"Don't treat people as bad as they are. Treat them as good as you are." -Kevin Kelly
“Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.” -Abraham Lincoln
"Each of us must cultivate a moral code, a higher standard that we love almost more than life itself. Each of us must sit down and ask colon What's important to me? What would I rather die for than betray? How am I going to live and why?" -Ryan Holiday
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" -Jesus
"Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us...worry about what threatens our souls." -Victor Hugo (Spoken by the Bishop in Les Miserables)
“One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present.” -Stephen Covey
"Do something every day that your future self will be proud of." -Michael Crossland
"It's easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time. The boundary—your personal moral line—is powerful, because you don't cross it; if you have justified doing it once, there's nothing to stop you doing it again." -Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon
"Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter." -Marcus Aurelius
"Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices." -Benjamin Franklin
"Tell me with whom you consort and I will tell you who you are; if I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you." -Goethe
"The CEO who misleads others in public may eventually mislead himself in private." -Warren Buffett
"The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The final estimate of men shows that history cares not an iota for the rank or title a man has borne, or the office he has held, but only the quality of his deeds and the character of his mind and heart." -Samuel Brengle
"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil." -Hannah Arendt
“There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.” -John Wooden
"We all create microcultures around us by the way we lead our lives and the vibes we send out to those around us. One of the greatest legacies a person can leave is a moral ecology—a system of belief and behavior that lives on after they die." -David Brooks
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." -Kurt Vonnegut
"You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say." -Martin Luther
"What if someone despises me? Let them see to it. But I will see to it that I won't be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let them see to that. But I will see to it that I'm kind and good-natured to all, and prepared to show even the hater where they went wrong. Not in a critical way, or to show off my patience, but genuinely and usefully." -Marcus Aurelius
“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
“Every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character.” -Character named Tom in the movie Last Christmas
“If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day.” -Adam Grant
"Virtue is in the balance between extremes. Between the insecure and the egomaniac: confidence. Between the uptight and the clown: grace. Between the coward and the daredevil: courage. Between selfishness and sacrifice: generosity." -Derek Sivers
“You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.” -Dag Hammarskjold
"No one is more exhausted than the person who, because they lack a moral code, must belabor every decision and consider every temptation." -Ryan Holiday
"Don't be too concerned about what others may think of you. Be very concerned about what you think of yourself." -John Wooden
"Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed's achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving." -Kevin Kelly
