Character Over Reputation Quotes & Sayings

Reputation is made in a moment; Character is built over a lifetime. — Elizabeth George

You have no power over your past,
but you do over your present.
You have no power over your history,
but you do over your future.
You have no power over your fortune,
but you do over your actions.
You have no power over your reputation,
but you do over your character.
You have no power over destiny,
but you do over yourself.
You have no power over anyone,
but you do over your world. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community; character is what you have when you go away. — William Davis

If you have to choose between character and reputation. Choose character every single time. Then you can be authentic and straight. Nothing to lose. — Parashar Pandya

Reputation is what men say about you on your tombstone;
Character is what the angels say about you before the throne of God — William Hersey Davis

Character is made by what you stand for;reputation by what you fall for. — Robert Quillen

If our reputation rests on the decisions we make, then Abishag has impeccable taste. If fragrance is worn to make a personal statement, then the unchosen Abishag has publicly proclaimed her allegiance. She has put on the scent of her lord, for her lord. She belongs to him. Every facet of her character proclaims rejection of other, so-called, 'shepherds.' Whether he chooses her, or not, she has chosen him.
pg 36 — Michael Ben Zehabe

Ever since I became a Muslim, I've had to deal with attempts to damage my reputation and countless insinuations seeking to cast doubt on my character and trying to connect me to causes which I do not subscribe to. — Cat Stevens

Foch never for a moment thought about the easy ways of bringing his name before the public and the political world, or even about acquiring a reputation for military insight among the chiefs of the French army. He never posed as a central figure at public functions; he was never interviewed by the press; he made no use of the professional reviews to bring his name before military readers. Ile never published a line until his chiefs suggested the publication of his lectures at the Staff College. From the day when he received his first commission he was a hard-working student of war, patiently preparing himself to do his duty when the opportunity came, and meanwhile content to put all his energies into the work assigned to him. Success in the career of arms is not always associated with high personal character or with this modest pursuit of duty for its own sake. — Andrew Hilliard Atteridge

Making 'Birdsong,' on the one hand you have how prestigious it is and the reputation of the book, which is something that's an extraordinary piece of work. Sebastian Faulkes is a genius. So you feel that responsibility when you're portraying that character that he's imagined and millions of readers have pictured. — Eddie Redmayne

Reputation is what people expect us to do next. It's their expectation of the quality and character of the next thing we produce or say or do.
We control our actions (even when it feels like we don't) and our actions over time (especially when we think no one is looking) earn our reputation. — Seth Godin

Your reputation is what people say about you. Your character is what God and your wife know about you. — Billy Sunday

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing. — Abraham Lincoln

If the people should elect, they will never fail to prefer some man of distinguished character, or services; some man, if he might so speak of continental reputation. — Gouverneur Morris

Reputation is what people think we are; character is what God and the holy angels know we are. — Warren W. Wiersbe

Most writers deserve the reputation posterity has bestowed upon them: You can't for long conceal the toxic spots on your character - Philip Larkin is Exhibit A - nor can you conceal your dignity, your humanism, your regard for veracity and freedom. — William Giraldi

Reputation is a reward, to be sure, but it is really the beginning, not the end of endeavor. It should not be the signal for a let-down, but rather, a reminder that the standards which won recognition can never again be lowered. From him who gives much - much is forever after expected. — Alvan Macauley

Reputation is what others think you are; character is what God knows you are. — Anonymous

The murderer only takes the life of the parent and leaves his character as a goodly heritage to his children, whilst the slanderer takes away his goodly reputation and leaves him a living monument to his children's disgrace. — Andrew Jackson

Be more interested in character than reputation — John Wooden

Never get a reputation for a small perfection if you are trying for fame in a loftier area. The world can only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiae seldom have their minds occupied with great things. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence. — Benjamin Haydon

A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His character no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge; and only himself can damage that. His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity. — John Bartholomew Gough

I would rather suffer with truth than celebrate with lies. — Orrin Woodward

Worry about your character, not your reputation. Your character is who you are, and your reputetion is who people think you re. — John Wooden

A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow. — Henry Ward Beecher

Don't destroy yourself by allowing negative people add gibberish and debris to your character, reputation, and aspirations. Keep all dreams alive but discreet, so that those with unhealthy tongues won't have any other option than to infest themselves with their own diseases. — Michael Bassey

Nothing deflates so fast as a punctured reputation. — Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar

Your NAME and your REPUTATION is ALL that you have, so GUARD them. They are worth more than money or gold. — L. Michelle

The world may take your reputation from you, but it cannot take your character. — Emma Dunham Kelley-Hawkins

In 77 BC, Cicero used the evidence of a client's well-kept ledger to argue in court for his good character and trustworthiness, saying, 'day-books last for a month, ledgers for ever . . . day-books embrace the memory of a moment, ledgers attest the good faith and conscientiousness which ensure a man's reputation for all time'. — Jane Gleeson-White

As events developed, the debate about jobs and energy extraction in general became more divisive. Those at one extreme embraced the industry as an expression of old-fashioned free enterprise. It offered work that built character and brought deserving rewards for those with initiative, whether they be roughnecks working twelve-hour shifts, investors staking their capital, or researchers staking their reputation on the next big discovery. At the other end of the spectrum were those who saw the industry as a relic of grandfather clauses and cronyism that dated to a period of predatory exploitation, when fantastical deals were pitched by door-to-door peddlers, manufacturing waste was buried in lagoons on private property, and unions were nonexistent. The middle ground was occupied by an untold number of consumers used to cheap plentiful energy, and property owners, who had their worries but also were able to calculate how much a mineral rights lease might be worth. — Tom Wilber

False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit. — Jean De La Bruyere

Develop your character; there is no need to be concerned about reputation. — Debasish Mridha

There is a very great difference - is there not? - between the temporal and the eternal judgments, a very great difference between a man's reputation and a man's character, for reputation is what men think and say of us, while character is what God and the angels know of us. — Price Collier

Affronts to her reputation pierced her to the heart, though I couldn't understand why, since she had very little character left to defend. — Melika Dannese Lux

The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command, if it is to do the work assigned to it if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate for while a judge must discover some composition with the dominant trends of his times, he must preserve his authority by cloaking himself in the majesty of an overshadowing past. — Learned Hand

A good reputation may be worth millions,
but a good character is worth all the riches of the world. — Matshona Dhliwayo