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.
Reputation is seeming; character is being. Reputation is manufactured; character is grown. Reputation is your photograph; There is a vast difference between character and reputation. Reputation is what men think we are; character is what God knows us to be. Reputation is seeming; character is being. Reputation is the breath of men; character is the inbreathing of the eternal God. One may for a time have a good reputation and a bad character, or the reverse ; but not for long.
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.
I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul.
A man's reputation is the opinion people have of him; his character is what he really is.
War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.
I was blessed enough to meet Pope John Paul when I was about 19 or 20 years old in the Vatican; I had that privilege, .. My mother took me to visit him and I remember distinctly his incredible charisma and personal charm and his warmth and compassion. You felt it immediately the minute you met him, and that spirit I came away with, having met the man, is something that I've been constantly working on to infuse the character with, so that we can have his spirit and his love and his compassion, because that's really the essence of the man.
The greatest powers cannot injure a man's character whose reputation is unblemished among his party.
If my husband ever met a woman on the street who looked like one of his paintings he would faint.
There are not anywhere else so many ways of trickery, so many false lights, so many veils, so many guises, so many illusive deceits, as are practiced in every man's conscience in respect to his motives, thoughts, feelings, conduct, and character.
Get to know two things about a man. How he earns his money and how he spends it. You will then have the clue to his character. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.
In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the levelling influence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practises so many petty deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.
A man is skillful at woodraft just in proportion as he approaches this balance. Knowing the wilderness can be comfortable when a less experienced man would endure hardship. Conversely, if a man endures hardships where a woodsman could be comfortable, it argues not his toughness, but his ignorance or foolishness, which is exactly the case with our blatant friend of the drawing-room reputation.
Sir Alex Ferguson was a genuinely nice man. We met many times and even had dinner together on a few occasions. But woe to the person who threatened or bothered Manchester United in any way. Then Ferguson would not spare his venom. I know, because he often aimed that venom at me.
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.
I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't.