What is Character?

clipped from www.josephsoninstitute.org Having character is shorthand for having good character, and that means being a person who is admirable because of his self-assured, ethical behavior. Character is ethics in action. Character is not the same thing as reputation. Character is what you are. Reputation is what people say you are. Abraham Lincoln likened character to a tree and reputation to its shadow. No one is born with good character. It’s not hereditary. Yet everyone, regardless of background, enters the world with the opportunity to become a person of exemplary character.