Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

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.

People of genius are admired. People of wealth are envied. People of power are feared. But only people of character are trusted.

One of the executives I interviewed said, “There’s no such thing as corporate culture.” His point was that the minute you start talking about corporate culture, it be comes somebody else’s problem—the leader’s problem. He said, “We don’t focus on corporate culture. We focus on character.” When you use the word character, that’s everyone’s responsibility. It’s about how we treat each other.

Fame can be a vapor, money has wings, popularity can be an accident. The only thing lasting in life is character.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost. When health is lost, something is lost. When character is lost, everything is lost.

We cannot achieve fulfillment simply by aiming for it, Aristotle taught; instead, we must cultivate traits of character (which he called virtues) that will lead us to behave automatically in a way that contributes to our success.

Aristotle also writes about vices. For every virtue there are usually two vices - one representing too much and one too little of the virtue in question. The vices of fearfulness and foolhardiness, for example, represent an imbalance of courage. Those who pursue excellence will cultivate a reasonable and measured way of life, the famous doctrine of the "golden mean."

Principles should not be confused with values. Principles describe how things are and how they work, whereas values state where we aim to go. If principles are the territory, then values are maps. Only when we value correct principles, do we have "a knowledge of things as they are." Practices are helpful in formalizing how to do things, but whereas "practices are situationally specific, principles are deep, fundamental truths that have universal application."

Integrity is the measure of the degree to which we have developed our independent will in our daily lives-how well we have implemented the goals chosen through personal leadership. Integrity is our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves.

When you get out of bed in the morning and think about what you want to do that day, ask yourself whether you'd like others to read about it on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper. You'll probably do things a little differently if you keep that in mind.

For it is character through which leadership is exercised, it is character that sets the example and is imitated in turnÂ….The more successfully tomorrow's manager does his work, the greater will be the integrity required of himÂ….No matter what a man's general education or his adult education for management, what will be decisive above all, in the future even more than in the past, is neither education nor skill; it is integrity of character.

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.