"But rules cannot substitute for character." - Alan Greenspan, 20th/21st-century chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board

"Character is what you are in the dark." - Unknown

"Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike." - Theodore Roosevelt, 20th-century American president

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist and poet
 
"We are what we seem to be." - Willard Gaylin, 20th-century American psychiatrist

"Our lives teach us who we are." - Salman Rushdie, 20th-century Anglo-Indian novelist

"If you don't have enemies, you don't have character." - Paul Newman, 20th-century American actor

"What someone is, begins to be revealed when his talent abates, when he stops showing us what he can do." - Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century German philosopher

"Why are we surprised when fig trees bear figs?" - Margaret Titzel

"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." - Abraham Lincoln, 19th-century U.S. president

"The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." - Helen Keller, 20th-century American social activist, public speaker and author

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." - Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize-winning 20th-century American civil rights leader

"The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back." - Abigail van Buren ("Dear Abby"), 20th-century American newspaper advice columnist

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

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out." - Baron Thomas Babington Macauley, early 19th-century English historian

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing, and only character endures." - Horace Greeley, 19th-century American journalist and educator

"The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he's born." - William R. Inge

"If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits." - William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, author

"The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult ethical controversies of the day." - William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, author

"Character is much easier kept than recovered." - Thomas Paine, 18th-century American political activist

"Every man has three characters: that which he shows, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has." - Alphonse Karr

"Character is simply habit long continued." - Plutarch, Roman biographer

"One can acquire everything in solitude - except character." - Henri Stendahl, 19th-century French author

"Character is that which can do without success." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

"No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

"The force of character is cumulative." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist, public philosopher and poet

"Not in time, place or circumstance but in the man lies success." - James Joyce, 20th-century Irish novelist

"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out." - Baron Thomas Babington Macauley, early 19th-century English historian

"It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character." - Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th-century German philosopher

"If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work."- Beryl Markham, 20th-century English adventurer and author

"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - Goethe, 18th/19th-century German poet, novelist, playwright and philosopher