Anonymous author; this is attributed to Mann, in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1998) edited by Connie Robertson, and similar statements are often attributed to Thomas Paine, but the earliest published variant of such a declaration seem to be in an anecdote about an anonymous Boston woman in 1889:
I have the reputation of being of good moral character. But you know reputation is what people think of us, while character is what God and the angels know of us, and that I don't want to tell.
Anonymous Boston woman, as quoted in Current Opinion (1889)
There is a very great difference — is there not? — between the temporal and the eternal judgments, a very great difference between a man's reputation and a man's character, for reputation is what men think and say of us, while character is what God and the angels know of us.
Price Collier, in Sermons (1892)
Reputation is what men and women think of us, character is what God and the angels know of us.
Attributed to Thomas Paine in A Dictionary of Terms, Phrases,and Quotations (1895) edited by Henry Percy Smith, and Helen Kendrick Johnson
Misattributed
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 46.
Variant: Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
Jackson, Jim, Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies, Then and Now
Quoted in Air Force Journal of Logistics, March 22, 2005, Notable quotes.(Lucien Truscott)(Brief Article)
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)
Hannity's America, May 13, 2007 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created
2000s, 2007
“Your reputation is what you're perceived to be,
Your character is what you really are”
“Women at least have elegant dresses. But what can men use to cover their emptiness?”
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
