Quotes About Character

We're dealing with a very dramatic and very fundamental paradigm shift here. You may try to lubricate your social interactions with personality techniques and skills, but in the process, you may truncate the vital character base. You can't have the fruits without the roots. It's the principle of sequencing: Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.

One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole."2

In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

The Personality Ethic tells me I could take some kind of dramatic action—shake

Personal effectiveness is the foundation of interpersonal effectiveness. Private victory precedes public victory. Strength of character and independence form the foundation for authentic, effective interaction with others.

Nurture Independent Will by Making and Keeping Promises One of the best ways to strengthen our independent will is to make and keep promises. Each time we do, we make deposits in our Personal Integrity Account.

Notice the sequence: ethos, pathos, logos—your character, and your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation.

Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand—highly developed qualities of character. It's so much easier to operate from a low emotional level and to give high-level advice.

The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character.2 As we become independent—proactive, centered in correct principles, value-driven, and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity—we can choose to become interdependent: capable of building rich, enduring, productive relationships with other people.

Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people.

There is no real excellence in all this world which can be separated from right living." DAVID STARR JORDAN

Somos lo que hacemos día a día. De modo que la excelencia no es un acto, sino un hábito.

Just as junk food and lack of exercise can ruin an athlete's condition, those things that are obscene, crude, or pornographic can breed an inner darkness that numbs our higher sensibilities and substitutes the social conscience of "Will I be found out?" for the natural or divine conscience of "What is right and wrong?

So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character. As we become independent—proactive, centered in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity—we then can choose to become interdependent—capable of building rich, enduring, highly productive relationships with other people.

Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths, generic common denominators. They are tightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty, and strength through the fabric of life.

the shift from the Character Ethic to the Personality Ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.

It's hard not to get impatient. It takes character to be proactive, to focus on your Circle of Influence, to nurture growing things, and not to "pull up the flowers to see how the roots are coming.

Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives?

Siembra un pensamiento, cosecha una acción; siembra una acción, cosecha un hábito. Siembra un hábito, cosecha un carácter; siembra un carácter, cosecha un destino

In stark contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the Character Ethic as the foundation of success—things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule.

private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others.

build inner character first—private victory before public victory.

By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods.

Stephen R. Covey