Character Quotes
Quotes to help inspire your character efforts!

Making money doesn't oblige people to forfeit their honor or their conscience.
--Baron Guy de Rothschild

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.
--John Adams

Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.
--Benjamin Rush

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them -- every day begin the task anew.
--Saint Francis de Sales

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.
--Aristotle

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
--William Morrow

O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.
--William Shakespeare

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.
--Cicero

Since the things we do determine the character of life, no blessed person can become unhappy. For he will never do those things which are hateful and petty.
--Aristotle

A man's character is his fate.
--Heraclitus

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
--Sir Winston Churchill

Don't take counsel of your fears.
--George S. Patton

When we no longer hold people responsible for their choices, civility and common sense will be diminished.
--Robert A. Levy

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
--Helen Keller

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

If Virtue and Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security.
--Samuel Adams

The only guide to a man is his conscience.
--Winston Churchill

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

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
--William Shakespeare

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
--Beverly Sills

One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an enemy - whether he knows about it or not.
--A. Battista

An apology is the superglue of life.  It can repair just about anything.
--Lynn Johnston

The only people you should ever want to get 'even' with are those who have helped you.
--John Honeyfeld

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
--Shakespeare

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
--King Solomon 

Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence, than the body can live and move without a soul.
--John Adams 

The First Continental Congress made its first act a prayer, the beginning of a great tradition. We have then a lesson from the founders of our land.  That lesson is clear: That in the winning of freedom and in the living of life, the first step is prayer.
--Ronald Reagan

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
--Theodore Roosevelt

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
--Aristotle

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance, to choose one's own way.
--Viktor Frankl

It's right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are.
--James Mackintosh

Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so thou shalt live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.
--Benjamin Franklin

The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.
--Duguet

It's not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts. Life isn't worth living, unless lived for other people.
--Mother Teresa

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
--Abraham Lincoln

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.
--Horace Greeley

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
--James A. Michener

Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.
--John Wayne

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point.
--C. S. Lewis

You can't be brave if you've only had
wonderful things happen to you.
--Mary Tyler Moore

Although the world is full of suffering,
it's full also of the overcoming it.
--Helen Keller

It is hard to fail; but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
--Theodore Roosevelt

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
--Mark Twain

The most important human endeavor is striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depends on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives.
--Albert Einstein

I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life; the life of toil and effort; of labour and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes not to the man who desires mere easy peace but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual.
--Theodore Roosevelt

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
--Aristotle

The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents.
--Charles H. Spurgeon

Have a heart that never hardens,
a temper that never tries, and a touch that never hurts.
--Charles Dickens

The hypocrite recognizes the honest man as his deadly enemy.
--Joseph Sobran

You don't have followers if you don't lead. You don't lead if you don't stand up for things worth standing up for. You don't win if you aren't prepared to sacrifice yourself for what you believe -- whether you think you can win or not.
--John L. Perry

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.
We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence,
but rather we have those because we have acted rightly.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
--Aristotle

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
--Benjamin Franklin

The one resolution, which was in my mind long before it took the form of a resolution, is the key-note of my life. It is this, always to regard as mere impertinences of fate the handicaps which were placed upon my life almost at the beginning. I resolved that they should not crush or dwarf my soul, but rather be made to blossom, like Aaron's rod, with flowers.
--Helen Keller

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
--Miguel de Cervantes

The virtues prized in free countries are honesty, self-discipline, a sense of responsibility to one's family, a sense of loyalty to one's employer and staff, and a pride in the quality of one's work. And these virtues only flourish in a climate of freedom.
--Margaret Thatcher

You just can't beat the person who never gives up.
--Babe Ruth

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
--Henry Ford

No child is taught to kill, but he has to be taught to love,
respect, honor and value, not only his own life,
but the lives of his classmates, parents and teachers.
He has to experience love and acceptance.
He has to know his life has purpose and meaning.
No amount of money can do that.
--Cal Thomas

History has taught us that freedom cannot long survive unless it is based on moral foundations. You can get the economics right, but in addition liberty must be cultivated as a moral quality.
--Margaret Thatcher

Character is much easier kept than recovered.
--Thomas Paine

Great persons are able to do great kindnesses.
--Miguel de Cervantes 

Moderation in temper is always a virtue;
but moderation in principle is always a vice.
--Thomas Paine

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice;
it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
--William Jennings Bryan

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
--Benjamin Disraeli

A false Friend and a Shadow, attend only while the Sun shines.
--Benjamin Franklin

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles,
the character of an 'Honest Man'.
--George Washington

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The strong man is the man who can stand up
for his rights and not hit back.
.--Martin Luther King, Jr.

He who is not courageous enough
to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.
--Muhammad Ali

The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.
--Whitney Young

The main source of national power and national greatness
is found in the average citizenship of the nation.
Therefore, it behooves us to do our best to see
that the standard of the average citizen is kept high
and the average can not be kept high unless
the standard of the leaders is very much higher.
--Theodore Roosevelt

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier
to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truth without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.
--Thomas Jefferson

A nation of character is filled with citizens who gradually build lives based on the living awareness that their deeds are judged by eyes of unchanging truth, by a will that is the real measure of what is right, and therefore of what is good.
--Alan Keyes

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes,
but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
--Alfred Lord Whitehead

Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue.
--St. John Chrysostom

Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
--John Adams

Good and evil both increase at compound interest.
That is why the little decisions you and I make every day
are of such infinite importance.
--C. S. Lewis

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
--Thomas Paine

Our happiness or misery depends on our attitudes
and not on our circumstances.
--Martha Washington

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline;
the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
--Abraham J. Heschel

It is more important to have self-respect than to gain respect from others.
--Madeleine de Scudery

I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks
as if they were great and noble.
--Helen Keller

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
--Theodore Roosevelt

He who is not aware of his ignorance
will be only misled by his knowledge.
--Richard Whately

Too many people overvalue what they are not
and undervalue what they are.
--Malcolm Forbes

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
--Samuel Johnson

Until we begin to discover the national values that for centuries have allowed us to rise above our natures and act as civilized men and women, our country will continue to suffer the steady deterioration in standards that disturbs us all.
--Rep. Tom Delay

Hold yourself responsible for a higher
standard than anybody else expects of you.
--Henry Ward Beecher

Children develop character by what they see,
by what they hear, and by what they are
repeatedly led to do.
--James Stenson

It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth,
but merely to fight on its behalf.
--Pascal

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
--George Washington

It is possible to get all A's and flunk life.
--Walker Percy

Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.
--Baltasar Gracian

I do the very best I know how - the very best I can;
and I mean to keep doing so until the end...
I walk slowly, but I never walk backwards.
--Abraham Lincoln

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost.
When health is lost, something is lost.
When character is lost, all is lost.
--Anonymous

The measure of a person's character is what
he would do if he were never found out.
--Thomas Macaulay

I dream of the day when all Americans
will be judged not by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Humility is the foundation of all virtues.
--Confucius

Beautiful hands are they that do deeds that are noble, good and true; Beautiful feet are they that go swiftly to lighten another's woe.
--McGuffy's Second Reader