Our Centers for Ethics:

Quotations: Character

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But rules cannot substitute for character.
— Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board (b. 1926)

Character is what you are in the dark.
— Unknown

Another man's soul is darkness.
— Russian proverb

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
— Albert Einstein, Swiss-American mathematician, physicist and public philosopher (1879-1955)

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
— Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and 26th president (1858-1919)

Character, not circumstance, makes the person.
— Booker T. Washington, American educator and civil rights activist (1856-1915)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

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.
— Woodrow Wilson, 28th American president (1856-1924)

We are what we seem to be.
— Willard Gaylin, American psychiatrist (b. 1925)

Our lives teach us who we are.
— Salman Rushdie,  Anglo-Indian novelist b. 1947)

If you don’t have enemies, you don’t have character.
— Paul Newman, American actor (b. 1925)

To exercise good character daily is to be morally fit for life.
— Karen Hartz, CC! coordinator, CHARACTER COUNTS! in Caroline County

What someone is, begins to be revealed when his talent abates, when he stops showing us what he can do.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844-1900)

Why are we surprised when fig trees bear figs?
— Margaret Titzel

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
— Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president (1809-1865)

Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
— Elbert Hubbard, 19th/20th-century American entrepreneur and philosopher (founder of Roycroft)

You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans.
— Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. president (b. 1911)

A person’s character is what it is. It’s a little like a marriage – only without the option of divorce. You can work on it and try to make it better, but basically you have to take the bitter with the sweet.
— Henrik Hertzberg, 20th-century American editor and journalist

What a man’s mind can create, man’s character can control.
— Attributed to Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931)

The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

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, American social activist, public speaker and author (1880-1968)

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.
— Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader (1929-1968)

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. 
— Abigail van Buren (Pauline Esther Friedman), American newspaper advice columnist (1918-2002)

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.
— Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384-322 B.C.)

Character is an essential tendency. It can be covered up, it can be messed with, it can be screwed around with, but it can’t be ultimately changed. It’s the structure of our bones, the blood that runs through our veins.
— Sam Shepard, American playwright, actor and director (b. 1943)

The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.
— Baron Thomas Babington Macauley, English historian and statesman (1800-1859)

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures.
— Horace Greeley, American journalist and educator (1811-1872)

The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he’s born.
— William R. Inge, American playwright (1913-1973)

If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits.
— William J. Bennett, author and former U.S. Secretary of Education (b. 1943)

The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult ethical controversies of the day.
— William J. Bennett, author and former U.S. Secretary of Education (b. 1943)

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.
— Thomas Carlyle, Scottish historian and author (1795-1881)

Character is much easier kept than recovered.
— Thomas Paine, British-born American political activist (1737-1809)

Every man has three characters: that which he shows, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.
— Alphonse Karr, French journalist (1808-1890)

All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.
— Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet, diplomat and political activist (1904-1973)

A man's character is his fate.
— Heraclitus, Greek philosopher (c. 540-c. 475 B.C.)

Character is simply habit long continued.
— Plutarch, Greek biographer (47-120 A.D.)

One can acquire everything in solitude — except character. 
— Henri Stendahl, French novelist (1783-1842)

Character is that which can do without success.
— Ralph Waldo  Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.  
— Ralph Waldo  Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1880)

The force of character is cumulative.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

Not in time, place or circumstance but in the man lies success.
— James Joyce, Irish novelist (1882-1941)

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.
— Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860)

If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.
— Beryl Markham, English adventurer and author (1902-1986)

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist, playwright, scientist and philosopher (1749-1832)

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