Inspirational Quotes on Character

“It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.”

“It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.”

“The supreme test of goodness is not in the greater but in the smaller incidents of our character and practice.”

“It is impossible to be our best at the supreme moment if character is corroded and eaten into by daily inconsistency, unfaithfulness, and besetting sin.”

“The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower. ”

“Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.”

“A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.”

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”

“Nothing is more like a wise man than a fool who holds his tongue.”

“Grant that we may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.”

“The average person's ear weighs what you are, not what you were.”

“Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies.”

“The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.”

“Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things, and is not hurt by them.”

“Violent excitement exhausts the mind, and leaves it withered and sterile.”

“A man's style is nearly as much a part of himself as his face, or figure, or the throbbing of his pulse; in short, as any part of his being which is subjected to the action of his will.”

“A silent man is easily reputed wise. A man who suffers none to see him in the common jostle and undress of life, easily gathers round him a mysterious veil of unknown sanctity, and men honor him for a saint. The unknown is always wonderful.”

“Make but few explanations. The character that cannot defend itself is not worth vindicating.”

“It is not the situation which makes the man, but the man who makes the situation. The slave may be a freeman. The monarch may be a slave. Situations are noble or ignoble, as we make them.”

“In these two things the greatness of man consists, to have God so dwelling in us as to impart his character to us, and to have him so dwelling in us that we recognize his presence, and know that we are his, and he is ours. The one is salvation: the other the assurance of it.”