Character vs Reputation

I recently found this website - Words of Wisdom 4U.

I signed up for their weekly email of motivational thoughts. This week the email included several thoughts I'd like to pass along. Some of the quotations that they printed help to reinforce the lesson that the building of CHARACTER rather than REPUTATION should be the focus of our self-improvement efforts. (Boldings in the following quotations are mine for emphasis, denoting the parts that were particularly meaningful to me.)

I'll start with my favorite quotation. Actually I have read an extension of it that I like even better. The extended version begins with "Sow a thought and you reap an act." The version given in this week's motivation email has been attributed to Charles Reade:

"Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny."

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer had this to say:

"Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what a reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character."

Helen Gahagan Douglas:

"Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action."

Dale Carnegie, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, said:

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation.
Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others
think you are."

INSPIRATIONAL POEM for YOUR WEEK
Reputation and Character
By William Hersey Davis

The circumstances amid which you life determine your reputation;
the truth you believe determines your character.

Reputation is what you are supposed to be;
character is what you are.

Reputation is the photograph;
character is the face.

Reputation comes over one from without;
character grows up from within.

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

Your reputation is learned in an hour;
your character does not come to light for a year.

Reputation is made in a moment;
character is built in a lifetime.

Reputation grows like a mushroom;
character grows like the oak.

A single newspaper report gives you your reputation;
a life of toil gives you your character.

Reputation makes you rich or makes you poor;
character makes you happy or makes you miserable.

Reputation is what men say about you on your tombstone;
character is what angels say about you before the throne of God.