Inspirational Quotes on Character

“We have employments assigned to us for every circumstance in life. When we are alone, we have our thoughts to watch; in the family, our tempers; and in company, our tongues.”

“Sensibility is neither good, nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle it makes saints and martyrs; ill-directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation.”

“No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man.”

“Consider how impossible nobility of character would be if our goodness were untried innocence instead of victorious virtue.”

“Our power is not so much in us as through us.”

“If lips and life do not agree, the testimony will not amount to much.”

“The testimony of the lips indicates the state of the heart.”

“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.”

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

“God is interested in developing your character. At times He lets you proceed, but He will never let you go too far without discipline to bring you back. In your relationship with God, He may let you make a wrong decision. Then the Spirit of God causes you to recognize that it is not God's will. He guides you back to the right path.”

“Nothing is more pathetic than having a small character in a big assignment. Many of us don't want to give attention to our character, we just want the big assignment from God.”

“Strength of character may be learned at work, but beauty of character is learned at home.”

“Character grows in the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.”

“Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness; good-temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man.”

“What is the creed of the Agnostic, but the confession of the spiritual numbness of humanity?”

“The ill-tempered person ... can make very little of his environment. However he may attempt to circumscribe it in certain directions, there will always remain a wide and ever-changing area to stimulate his irascibility. His environment, in short, is an inconstant quantity, and his most elaborate calculations and precautions must often and suddenly fail him.”

“Under the right conditions it is as natural for character to become beautiful as for a flower; and if on God's earth there is not some machinery for effecting it, the supreme gift to the world has been forgotten. This is simply what man was made for. With Browning: "I say that Man was made to grow, not stop."”

“Man is a moral animal, and can, and ought to, arrive at great natural beauty of character. But this is simply to obey the law of his nature--the law of his flesh; and no progress along that line can project him into the spiritual sphere.”

“In dealing with a man of fine moral character, we are dealing with the highest achievement of the organic kingdom. But in dealing with a spiritual man we are dealing with THE LOWEST FORM OF LIFE IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. To contrast the two, therefore, and marvel that the one is apparently so little better than the other, is unscientific and unjust.”

“Every man's character remains as it is, or continues in the direction in which it is going, until it is compelled by IMPRESSED FORCES to change that state. Our failure has been the failure to put ourselves in the way of the impressed forces. There is a clay, and there is a Potter; we have tried to get the clay to mould the clay.”