Ali ibn Abi Talib Quotes

I believe that ideal character in its perfection is potentially in every man who is born into the world.

Listen to your conscience regarding something that you simply know you should do, then start small on it - make a promise and keep it. Then move forward and make a little larger promise and keep it. Eventually you'll discover that your sense of honor will become greater than your moods, and that will give you a level of confidence and excitement that you can move to other areas where you feel you need to make improvements or give service.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat; Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.

It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece - by thought, choice, courage, and determination.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

When you locate good in yourself, approve of it with determination. When you locate evil in yourself, despise it as something detestable.

I make mistakes, but each and every day you want to try to better yourself to be a better person and learn from your mistakes.

I think we're innately good. But it doesn't mean we're gonna do good all the time. It means you have to strive.

Never stop working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you, until you see self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat.

Don't depend on death to liberate you from your imperfections. You are exactly the same after death as you were before. Nothing changes; you only give up the body. If you are a thief or a liar or a cheater before death, you don't become an angel merely by dying. If such were possible, then let us all go and jump in the ocean now and become angels at once! Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be hereafter. And when you reincarnate, you will bring that same nature with you. To change, you have to make the effort. This world is the place to do it.

Never has a man who has bent himself been able to make others straight.

Your success stops where your character stops. You can never rise above the limitations of your character.

We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.

Do you wish the world were better? Let me tell you what to do: Set a watch upon your actions, Keep them always straight and true.

I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better then the bad.

Heroism is a matter of integrity--beco ming more and more at each step ourselves.

For every one step that you take in the pursuit of higher knowledge, take three steps in the perfection of your own character

We often pray for purity, unselfishness, for the highest qualities of character, and forget that these things cannot be given, but must be earned.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore the superior man is watchful over himself, when he is alone.

Try to be all you can be to be the best human being you can be. Try to be that in your church, in your temple. Try to be that in your classroom. Do it because it is right to do.

How hard you work at correcting your faults reveals your character.

If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.

Search others for their virtue, and yourself for your vices.