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Ones reputation is like a shadow, it is gigantic when it precedes you, and a pigmy in proportion when it follows.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

The petty man is eager to make boasts, yet desires that others should believe in him. He enthusiastically engages in deception, yet wants others to have affection for him. He conducts himself like an animal, yet wants others to think well of him.

Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest.

A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

What is character? It is that quality of man which is going to make a man, in an hour of strain, do the just and, if possible, the generous thing.