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Sow a thought and you reap an action;
sow an act and you reap a habit;
sow a habit and you reap a character;
sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Among the many attributions found for this: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andre Maurois, Charles Reade, Buddist Proverb, Samuel Smiles, James Allen, George D. Boardman, and Francis E. Willard
-Anon., attributed to various sources
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An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,"Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
-American Indian Proverb
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Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own; and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing.
-Lord (John Emerich Edward Dalberg) Acton
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Character is the salesperson’s stock in trade. The product itself is secondary. Truthfulness, enthusiasm and patience are great assets to every salesperson. Without them, they couldn’t go far. Courage and courtesy are essential equipment.
-George M. Adams
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Perfection of character consists in this; living each day as if it were the last, and spending each moment in peace.
-Marcus Aurelius
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We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
-David Bailey
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The discipline you learn and character you build from setting and achieving a goal can be more valuable than the achievement of the goal itself.
-Bo Bennett, "Year to Success"
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Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.
-Helen P. Blavatsky
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The white light streams down to be broken up by those human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow. Take your own color in the pattern and be just that.
-Charles R. Brown
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"Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking."
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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"Do not wait for the last judgement. It takes place every day."
-Albert Camus
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Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
-Dale Carnegie
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If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.
-Agatha Christie
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Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character. He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's traits might suit him better. The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
-Marcus Tullius Cicero
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To see what is right, and not do it, is want of courage, or of principle.
-Confucius
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The circumstances amid which you life determine your reputation; the truth you believe determines your character.
Reputation is what you are supposed to be; character is what you are.
Reputation is the photograph; character is the face.
Reputation comes over one from without; character grows up from within.
Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community; character is what you have when you go away.
Your reputation is learned in an hour; your character does not come to light for a year.
Reputation is made in a moment; character is built in a lifetime.
Reputation grows like a mushroom; character grows like the oak.
A single newspaper report gives you your reputation; a life of toil gives you your character.
Reputation makes you rich or makes you poor; character makes you happy or makes you miserable.
Reputation is what men say about you on your tombstone;
character is what angels say about you before the throne of God.
-William Hersey Davis, (source unknown)
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To judge a man's character by only one of its manifestations is like judging the sea by a jugful of its water.
-Paul Eldridge
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When a man thinks he is reading the character of another, he is often unconsciously betraying his own.
-Joseph Farrell
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"To measure the man, measure his heart."
-Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
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Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures.
-Horace Greeley
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To exercise good character daily is to be morally fit for life.
-Karen Hartz, "CHARACTER COUNTS!" in Caroline County
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The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny — it is the light that guides your way.
-Heraclitus
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"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do."
-John Holt
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"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
-Elbert Hubbard
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"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."
-Helen Keller
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"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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There have always been hard times. There have always been wars and troubles — famine, disease and such-like — and some folks are born with money, some with none. In the end it is up to the man what he becomes, and none of the other things matter. It is character that counts.
-Louis L'Amour
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To produce things and to rear them,
To produce, but not to take possession of them,
To act, but not to rely on one's own ability,
To lead them, but not to master them -
This is called profound and secret virtue.
-Lao-Tzu, The Way of Lao-Tzu
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Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-Abraham Lincoln
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"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out."
-Thomas Babington Macaulay
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"It's good to shut up sometimes."
-Marcel Marceau
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"When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character."
-W. Somerset Maugham
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No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as a citizen and a Christian, his true meannesses, his true imbecilities, to his friends, or even to his wife. Honest autobiography is therefore a contradiction in terms: the moment a man considers himself, even in petto, he tries to gild and fresco himself. Thus a man's wife, however realistic her view of him, always flatters him in the end, for the worst she sees in him is appreciably better, by the time she sees it, than what is actually there.
-H. L. Mencken, "The Art Eternal", "New York Evening Mail, 1918"
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The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themseleves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest. Difficult tasks are a priviledge to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.
-Edward Rickenbacker
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I admire men of character and I judge character not by how men deal with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their subordinates. And that, to me, is where you find out what the character of a man is.
-Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
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"To point out the importance of circumspection in your conduct, it may be proper to observe that a good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous."
-George Washington, in a letter to his nephew, 1790
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In order to form correct habits, we should seek the company of persons of sound moral and religious influence. We should constantly bear in mind that we may be fitting to inhabit the heavenly courts. The precious hours of probation are granted that we may remove every defect from the character; and we should seek to do this, not only that we may obtain the future life, but that we may be useful here. Young men and women should regard a good character as a capital of more value than gold or silver or stocks. It will be unaffected by panics and failures, and will bring rich returns when earthly possessions shall be swept away.
-Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church Volume Four (1875 - 1881)
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He is like a good prewar house-solidly built. They don't build them that way anymore. He's also been repainted several times.
-Theodore White
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Give fools their gold, and knaves their power;
Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall;
Who sows a field, or trains a flower,
Or plants a tree, is more than all.
-John Greenleaf Whittier, A Song of Harvest
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No fate could rob us of our own--
No circumstance can make it less;
What time removes was but a loan,
For what was ours we still possess.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Possession
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“Every time we are disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us."
No matter how unreasonable others may seem, I am responsible for not reacting negatively. Regardless of what is happening around me I will always have the prerogative, and the responsibility, of choosing what happens within me. I am the creator of my own reality.
When I [review my day], I know that I must stop judging others. If I judge others, I am probably judging myself.
Whoever is upsetting me most is my best teacher. I have much to learn from him or her, and in my hearts, I should thank that person.
also found in "Daily Reflections" for the day October 7
-Bill Wilson, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 88
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“If you lose your wealth, you have lost nothing,
If you lose your health, you have lost something,
But if you lose your character, you have lost everything.”
-Woodrow Wilson
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"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
-John Wooden
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Books about Character
