Quotes & Sayings About Character Building

The ninth gift is Reverence. May you appreciate the wonder that you are and the miracle of all creation. — Charlene Costanzo

The greatest work in all the world is the building of men and women of character. Without character there is not much that is worthwhile. — Ezra Taft Benson

Keep doing the right. God is building character in you, and you are passing that test. Remember, the greater the struggle, the greater the reward. — Joel Osteen

Catholic schools carry out a great mission, to serve God by building knowledge and character ... By teaching the word of God, you prepare your students to follow a path of virtue. — George W. Bush

Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd. — Richard Whately

Every problem is a character-building opportunity, and the more difficult it is, the greater the potential for building spiritual muscle and moral fiber. — Rick Warren

Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down. — Florence King

The third gift is Courage. May you speak and act with confidence and use courage to follow your own path. — Charlene Costanzo

The seventh gift is Talent. May you discover your own special abilities and contribute them toward a better world. — Charlene Costanzo

Don't seek to be respected by everyone, rather seek to be worthy of being respected by everyone. — Bohdi Sanders

I'm building a career as big as humanly possible so I can be in a 'Star Wars' project. My life goal is to have a character in the 'Star Wars' universe, film or other media. I just want to go to my grave knowing I played some character or some character based on my likeness was part of that world. — Rahul Kohli

Our most valuable teachers are our enemies.While our friends can help us in many ways, only our enemies can provide us with the challenge we need to develop tolerance, patience, and compassionthree virtues essential for building character, developing peace of mind, and bringing us true happiness. — Dalai Lama

Emotionally and physically, I'm an extremely fragile creation of God; while the strong will and character are formed out of the necessity to protect the vulnerable core. — Sahara Sanders

I spent a long time working in restaurants and making no money. It was very character-building, but I think it could have been built in a shorter time. — Graham Norton

It wasn't so much that my mother always had to have her own way; it was more that if you disagreed with her, the rhetorical power this unleashed would shock you into seeing things from her point of view. The minute she sensed resistance, all of her intellect would be summoned into an irresistible arrowhead of purpose, and the most sensible strategic approach was therefore never to disagree with her too forcefully. — James Scudamore

...I've been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I've had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I withed that they would not replay in my head, but they did. In all these moments--some tear-soaked, some life-defining, but all character-building moments--I have felt vulnerable.
And I believe these feelings of vulnerability--when a person feels scared and alone and overwhelmed and pissed off, wen the sting of unfairness bites deep--while miserable to live through, are the basis for writing compelling fiction. — Jessica Page Morrell

Truth telling is the first building block of character
a quality that seems to be getting rarer and rarer in all-forgiving America. — Mona Charen

I guess you think this is some kind of character-building exercise, too, then??"

"Do you REALLY think the last thing I'm gonna do before I die is admit someone else was right?? — Nick Spencer

The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character building values of the privation of the poor. — John Kenneth Galbraith

lost a great innocence when I understood that I and my mind were not going to be on good terms for the rest of my life. I can't tell you how tired I am of character-building experiences. But I treasure this part of me; whoever loves me loves me with this in it. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Trifles lighter than straws are levers in the building up of character. — Martin Farquhar Tupper

Allow me to tell you, Mr Taylor", said I, but quietly as the occassion demanded, "that one gentleman does not rejoice at the misfortune of another in public". — William Golding

Building character is like making bread - you have to mix it little by little, step by step, and moderate temperature is needed. You know yourself quite well, and you know how much temperature you need. You know exactly what you need. But if you get too excited, you will forget how much temperature is good for you, and you will lose your own way. This is very dangerous. — Shunryu Suzuki

In character-building and in living the Christian life, concentration is important. The [person] who has a general interest in everything usually isn't too good at anything. — Billy Graham

Clothing is the first step to building a character. — Sylvester Stallone

It was a character-building week, a week that thinned my hair, put circles underneath my eyes. — Megan Mayhew Bergman

I wrote 'Fight Song' as this declaration to believe in myself, and that is similar to what you are taught to believe in Girl Scouts. Building confidence. Building character. And above all else, being there for each other as a community. — Rachel Platten

Your reputation is what others think of you; your character is what you truly are. Reputations can be manipulated; character can only be developed and maintained. — Bohdi Sanders

Keeping or holding on to a concept shows belief but building or adding to it shows confidence and depth of character. — Delma Pryce

Seen from an aeroplane high in the air, even the most gigantic skyscraper is only a tall stone black, a mere sculptural form, not a real building in which people can live. But as the plane descends from the great heights there will be one moment when the buildings change character completely. Suddenly, they take on human scale, become houses for human beings like ourselves, not the tiny dolls observed from the heights. This strange tranformation takes place at the instant when the contours of the buildings begin to rise above the horizon so that we get a side view of them instead of looking down on them. The buildings pass into a new stage of existence, become architecture in place of neat toys
for architecture means shapes formed around man, formed to be lived in, not merely to be seen from outside. — Steen Eiler Rasmussen

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. — Randy Shilts

I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam, and the side wall fell.
I asked the foreman: "Are these skilled
And the men you'd hire if you had to build?"
He gave me a laugh and said: "No, indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do."
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care
Measuring life by a rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds to a well made Plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker, who walks the town
Content with the labor of tearing down? — Edgar A. Guest

Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spend more time building your character than trying to build your platform. — Christine Caine

One exemplary act may affect one life, or even millions of lives. All those who set standards for themselves, who strengthen the bonds of community, who do their work creditably and accept individual responsibility, are building the common future. — John W. Gardner

I was offered some film roles, and I did not do them. It would have been interesting, but I have no regrets. I am where I am; I accept and embrace the mistakes because they're character-building and they build perspective and talent. — Peter Scolari

To me it's not so much that the movies are slow-paced as much as they are about spending time building a relationship between the audience and the characters. If you don't spend an adequate amount of time doing this, then how can you expect to scare anyone? — Ti West

Lack of credibility slays your character — Bernard Kelvin Clive

The tenth gift is Wisdom. Guiding your way, wisdom will lead you through knowledge to understanding. May you hear its soft voice. — Charlene Costanzo

I suppose that when I'm building a character, it's usually related to what their family is like and who their parents are, as well as how I grew up - that nurture side. — Henry Cavill

You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his flagging spirits by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of opium or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder in that state of mind you had when you made it. If you spend for show, on building, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so appear. We are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and things themselves are detective. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. It's very character-building. — Steve Jobs

The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character. — Stephen Covey

If we don't invest now in building character into children we will surely invest more tomorrow in trying to repair adults. — Michael Josephson

Words were no longer simply words, but a curious codes of silence, a way of speaking that continually moved around the thing that was being said. As long as we avoided the real subject, the spell would not broken. We both slipped naturally into this kind of banter, and it became all the more powerful because neither of us abandoned the character. We knew what we were doing, but at the same time we pretended not to. Thus my courtship of Sophie began - slowly, decorously, building by the smallest of increments. — Paul Auster

Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies. — Suzy Kassem

I have lost and loved and won and cried myself to the person I am today. — Charlotte Eriksson

The eleventh gift is Love. It will grow each time you give it away. — Charlene Costanzo

Use your gifts well and you will discover others, among them a gift that is uniquely you. See these noble gifts in other people. Share the truth and be ready for the miracle to unfold — Charlene Costanzo

loneliness is a great teacher and a master test of character — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

What all of these jobs taught me is that you have to be willing to tolerate some shit you don't like - at least for a while. This is what my parents' generation would call "character building," but I prefer to call it "#GIRLBOSS training." I didn't expect to love any of these jobs, but I learned a lot because I worked hard and grew to love things about them. — Sophia Amoruso

The House of Change... is bigger inside than out. — Michael Ende

If you've seen 'Spirited Away', 'Spirited Away' is set in a very, very Japanese sensibility. And so, to Japanese audiences, when Sen would walk up, the main character, and look at this big building with a flag on it with Japanese writing on it, everyone in Japan would know what that is. — John Lasseter

The second gift is Beauty. May your deeds reflect its depth. — Charlene Costanzo

I'm a huge fan of BioWare games. I think they do some of the best character-building. I mean, I have a relationship with Thane from 'Mass Effect' that is as vivid as any crush that I've had on a TV-show character. — Felicia Day

To every bad there's a good and to every good there's a bad. And both are pertinent to the lessons of life, and the building of your character or individuality. — Aloy Ricketts

Style is not the man; it is something better. It is a dizzy, dazzling structure that he erects about himself using as building materials selected elements from his own character. — Quentin Crisp

We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought. Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living. An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek. — Alcoholics Anonymous

We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning. Like rapport-building, charm and the deceptive smile, unsolicited niceness often has a discoverable motive. — Gavin De Becker

I go through a whole process with the actors first, building and creating characters, then I encourage them to sort of live in that character when they're in the screen. — Keenen Ivory Wayans

The loss of these tastes [for poetry and music] is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature. — Charles Darwin

I feel there is something almost sacred about building a boat ... It is almost like creating a living being, a boat seems to have a soul and character all her own ... It requires more thought to give a boat a good name than it does a child. — John Guzzwell

Years of live storytelling and character acting have helped me with building vivid locations and scenes. — David Crabb

One of the coolest ways to start building a character is the way he moves his mouth, what part of the mouth he puts his words into, how he expresses himself, and there's a certain flavor you get with a dialect. — Cory Michael Smith

I think what people watch television for is the emotional continuity, from episode to episode, and feeling that the experience that they had, four episodes ago, has actually been building to an episode that comes later, and knowing that the characters are growing, as a result of that, and making mistakes, is really, really important to the way people connect to television. — Alex Kurtzman

What you wear can be such an indicator of so many things. You know, how you feel, how you want others to perceive you. So, that is an absolutely essential part of building a character. — Oscar Isaac

The thing about being powerful is that it may be a limited edition... as the source of the power goes you go; but becoming empowered will last a lifetime. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

I think it's really important, when you're redefining a character [ Spider-Man], for the audience to experience things that they haven't experienced, from the ground up. I wanted to build a character. I feel like point of view is a really crucial thing in the story, and that you need to build up the emotional building blocks, so that you can experience all the other emotions in a very specific way, rather than just experiencing it in an intellectual way. — Marc Webb

Your character is your destiny. Building character is a task for the brave and dedicated. There are no shortcuts when it comes to building character. If you wish to cure minimalism in your own life, to develop a complete commitment to excellence and an absolute rejection of mediocrity, the question you need to start asking yourself is, "What is the most I can do?" — Matthew Kelly

When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?' — John Sandford

Love opens the most impossible gates in the world. — Abhijit Naskar

The Sound of Building Coffins is a soulful work from a writer of the weird. Maistros does more than make you feel for his characters and their twisted, damaged lives; he makes you *want* to feel. — Paul G. Tremblay

It is an awful, just sickening feeling, I discovered, to live with somebody, to exist in the midst of sharing a life, only to realize it is utterly doomed. It was botulism of the soul. I'd had such ambition for building a life together, because I wanted that strength of character and security. But I had overlooked the most important thing: he wasn't right for me. I wasn't right for him. Merely wanting us to be right and good together wasn't enough. — Augusten Burroughs

I have to say from an actor's perspective, to work with a director who has been an actor through most of their career is a pleasure. They generally have a very deep understanding of the process of what you're doing, of how you are building and exploring the character. — Karen Allen

We'd never talked about his parents, like he was some underwater Peter Pan. — Katherine McIntyre

One of the most critical decisions made in life is choosing with whom to spend your time. For it is those close relationships that gradually mold our character until we become a reflection of the company we keep. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Young bodies are like tender plants, which grow and become hardened to whatever shape you've trained them. — Desiderius Erasmus

When something is hard, but you do it anyway and get stronger because you did it, that's building character. — Susan Wiggs

One cannot completely avoid this landmark character with large buildings such as these. But the city itself is also gigantic. — Rem Koolhaas

Mine could not be a story about the building of character, but about its erosion, about the slow accumulation of small forces and events that ultimately dries the soul and leaves the heart empty. — Gonzalo Munevar

The first gift is Strength. May you remember to call upon it whenever you need it. — Charlene Costanzo

It's important to know the kind of character that you need to be building up to, throughout the series. — Holliday Grainger

I also happened to identify with Julien Sorel. Sorel's basic character flaws had all cemented by the age of fifteen, a fact which further elicited my sympathy. To have all the building blocks of your life in place by that age was, by any standard, a tragedy. — Haruki Murakami

Obviously, with a CGI character, you're building a character in much the same way as a real creature is built. You build the bones, the skeletons, the muscles. You put layers of fat on. You put a layer of skin on which has to have a translucency, depending on what the character is. — Peter Jackson

In 1963, while my brothers were engaged in their lives, I call this period of my life 'my character-building years.' I adhered to the saying, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going. — Marc Ashton

Science fiction, as a genre is fundamentally about ideas. It's about asking an impossible question, "What if...?" and building a story out of the answer.

Romance on the other hand, is fundamentally about relationships. The hypothetical romance transposed to the past could be rewritten without the futuristic elements and still work as a story, which is something that can't happen with SF. It works in romance, because the story is the relationship and that depends on character, not setting.

Lots of books take elements from multiple genres, and there are elements that put them into one genre or another, but setting isn't a key determinant. — Dave Robinson

When I was in school, sport was given utmost importance. I think it's fantastic for character building, for team playing, and I think it's a great profile for a nation. One in every six people on Earth is an Indian, and I look forward to the day when we can compete with the heavyweights of the sporting world and do well in the medal tally. — Abhishek Bachchan

The fourth gift is Compassion. May you be gentle with yourself and others. May you forgive those who hurt you and yourself when you make mistakes. — Charlene Costanzo

My son craves picture books about Transformers and Ninja Turtles and the Hulk; they show one fantastic creature smashing or zapping another into smithereens on page after page. They are dull and ugly and show no interesting stories or models of conflict resolution or character building. — Russell Smith

We are bound by ideals that teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these ideals. Every citizen must uphold them ... I ask you to be citizens. Citizens, not spectators. Citizens, not subjects. Responsible citizens building communities of service and a nation of character. — George W. Bush

Your pride for your country should not come after your country becomes great; your country becomes great because of your pride in it. — Idowu Koyenikan

If you directly try to write about an idea, it will never be what you imagined. But if you're imagining through the building of sentences, through the characters, and paying attention to avoid ease and comfort yet still thinking about making the sentences work, you will get a shot at some real interesting stuff. — Dana Spiotta

You have something special, you have GREATNESS within you! — Les Brown

I believe the main purpose of life is to accept with gratitude what you've been blessed with so that you may use those gifts to mold yourself into the best person you can possibly be. Learning to discern things of true value from those of little or no worth is part of the process. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Luckily, I went to school at CalArts, and then ended up here at Disney, starting in the Animation Building and working my way up. I started as an animator, and then did character designing and storyboarding, and eventually, directing. — Chris Buck

My creative workday starts with strong breakfast tea and a few minutes of journaling, both of which help me get my head in the story. So much of story-building for me involves immersing myself in the character and situation I'll be working on, just the way an actor does when playing a role. — Therese Fowler

When they talk of building self-esteem, they often resort to empty flattery rather than character-building honesty. I've heard so many people talk of downward spiral in our educational system, and I think one key factor is that there is too much stroking and too littke real feedback. — Randy Pausch

The heart must be renewed by divine grace, or it will be in vain to seek for purity of life. He who attempts to build up a noble, virtuous character independent of the grace of Christ is building his house upon the shifting sand. — Ellen G. White

We must have life building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. — Swami Vivekananda

Expeditions can greatly contribute towards building strength of character. Joseph Conrad in Lord Jim tells us that it is necessary for a youth to experience events which 'reveal the inner worth of the man; the edge of his temper; the fibre of his stuff; the quality of his resistance; the secret truth of his pretences, not only to himself but others. — Kurt Hahn