Pain Builds Character Quotes

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable.

Death, like so much in life, is a lesson, which must be understood and cherished, not feared; it is a rite of passage we all must encounter at one time or another; it helps build our character and makes us stronger if we can endure its painful aftermath.

Fateful encounters with a cruel world reveal our character. No human is immune from heartbreaking loss. Regardless of our socioeconomic status, eventually everybody shall suffer a grievous personal loss, a body blow that inflicts pain of inexpressible magnitude.

Misery builds character, happiness makes cheesecake.

If you've been betrayed by someone. For your own sanity, associate the problem with the individual and not with the gender.

Pain, fear, drudgery, boredom, lots of boredom—these are the things that build character. And you need to experience loss and remorse because falling down gives you the opportunity to rise once more. Overcoming challenges turns a self-centered infant into a caring adult. Empathy—the ability to understand and appreciate the feelings of others—is the cornerstone of civilization and the foundation of our relationships. Lack of it . . . well, lack of empathy is as close to a definition of evil that I can come up with.

And besides, in the matter of friendship, I have observed that the disappointment here arises chiefly, not from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too highly, but rather from an over-estimate of their liking for and opinion of us; and that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness of care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy to give more affection than we receive -- can make just comparison of circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence, and never let self-love blind our eyes -- I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a little metaphysical, but it is good sense of if you consider it. The moral of it is, that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own; we must look at their truth to themselves, full as much as their truth to us. In the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness; in the former, only some painful change in the friend's character and disposition -- some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better self -- could alienate the heart.

A few minutes after they left, Harold bought the blanket from his bed, surrounded himself with his stuffed-toy animals, and built a fort out of them. Children project souls into their favorite stuffed animals and commune with them in the way adults commune with religious icons. Years later he would remember a happy childhood, but it was interwoven with painful separations, confusions, misapprehensions, traumas, and mysteries. This is why all biographies are inadequate; they can never capture the inner currents. This is why self knowledge is limited. Only a few remarkable people can sense the way early experience has built models in the brain. Later in life we build fictions and theories to paper over the mystery of what is happening deep inside, but in childhood, the inexplicableness of the world is still vivid and fresh, and sometimes hits with terrifying force.

No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire

Transfiguration of the self is painful since it represents sprouting downy wings that give flight to a battered soul.

You only see the light of the sun, not its combustion agony.

When all you can do is watch things play out for someone, it is often just as painful for the observer as it is for the participant.

God will spare no pains necessary to bring us into relationship with Himself, even as that may mean permitting whatever pain is necessary to do so. Suffering is the grist by which the mill of faith yields the raw material of new character, greater insight and deeper relationship with God.

I told my version – faithful and invented, accurate and misremembered, shuffled in time. I told myself as hero like any shipwreck story. It was a shipwreck, and me thrown on the coastline of humankind, and finding it not altogether human, and rarely kind. And I suppose that the saddest thing for me, thinking about the cover version that is Oranges, is that I wrote a story I could live with. The other one was too painful. I could not survive it. I am often asked, in a tick-box kind of way, what is 'true' and what is not 'true' in Oranges. Did I work in a funeral parlour? Did I drive an ice-cream van? Did we have a Gospel Tent? Did Mrs. Winterson build her own CB radio? Did she really stun tomcats with a catapult? I can't answer these questions. I can say that there is a character in Oranges called Testifying Elsie who looks after the little Jeanette and acts as a soft wall against the hurt(ling) force of Mother. I wrote her in because I couldn't bear to leave her out. I wrote her in because I really wished it had been that way. When you are a solitary child you find an imaginary friend. There was no Elsie. There was no one like Elsie. Things were much lonelier than that.

I believe the ability to view the agony and discomfort of a miserable and painful situation as a character building and physically strengthening experience. It is what separates the mentally tough from the mentally not so tough. The ability to recognize that in the long run, one’s suffering can be nothing but beneficial in the future when confronted with similar situations. Where many might crumble and quit, others see the bigger picture, persevere, and ultimately become stronger. That’s

HAPPINESS: "Flourishing is a fact, not a feeling. We flourish when we grow and thrive. We flourish when we exercise our powers. We flourish when we become what we are capable of becoming...Flourishing is rooted in action..."happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence"...a flourishing life is a life lived along lines of excellence...Flourishing is a condition that is created by the choices we make in the world we live in...Flourishing is not a virtue, but a condition; not a character trait, but a result. We need virtue to flourish, but virtue isn't enough. To create a flourishing life, we need both virtue and the conditions in which virtue can flourish...Resilience is a virtue required for flourishing, bur being resilient will not guarantee that we will flourish. Unfairness, injustice, and bad fortune will snuff our promising lives. Unasked-for pain will still come our way...We can build resilience and shape the world we live in. We can't rebuild the world...three primary kinds of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence...people who are flourishing usually have all three kinds of happiness in their lives...Aristotle understood: pushing ourselves to grow, to get better, to dive deeper is at the heart of happiness...This is the happiness that goes hand in hand with excellence, with pursuing worthy goals, with growing mastery...It is about the exercise of powers. The most common mistake people make in thinking about the happiness of excellence is to focus on moments of achievement. They imagine the mountain climber on the summit. That's part of the happiness of excellence, and a very real part. What counts more, though, is not the happiness of being there, but the happiness of getting there. A mountain climber heads for the summit, and joy meets her along the way. You head for the bottom of the ocean, and joy meets you on the way down...you create joy along the way...the concept of flow, the kind of happiness that comes when we lose ourselves through complete absorption in a rewarding task...the idea of flow..."Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."...Joy, like sweat, is usually a byproduct of your activity, not your aim...A focus on happiness will not lead to excellence. A focus on excellence will, over time, lead to happiness. The pursuit of excellence leads to growth, mastery, and achievement. None of these are sufficient for happiness, yet all of them are necessary...the pull of purpose, the desire to feel "needed in this world" - however we fulfill that desire - is a very powerful force in a human life...recognize that the drive to live well and purposefully isn't some grim, ugly, teeth-gritting duty. On the contrary: "it's a very good feeling." It is really is happiness...Pleasures can never make up for an absence of purposeful work and meaningful relationships. Pleasures will never make you whole...Real happiness comes from working together, hurting together, fighting together, surviving together, mourning together. It is the essence of the happiness of excellence...The happiness of pleasure can't provide purpose; it can't substitute for the happiness of excellence. The challenge for the veteran - and for anyone suddenly deprived of purpose - is not simple to overcome trauma, but to rebuild meaning. The only way out is through suffering to strength. Through hardship to healing. And the longer we wait, the less life we have to live...We are meant to have worthy work to do. If we aren't allowed to struggle for something worthwhile, we'll never grow in resilience, and we'll never experience complete happiness.

Most of these reveal a psychological shrewdness about human fallibility: • A man of genius is but seldom ruined but by himself. • If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle. • There are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by. • All censure of self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. • Man’s chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature. • No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. • Very few can boast of hearts which they dare lay open to themselves. • Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage you think is particularly fine, strike it out. • Every man naturally persuades himself he can keep his resolutions; nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment. Through his moral essays, Johnson was able to impose order on the world, to anchor his experiences in the stability of the truth. He had to still himself in order to achieve an objective perception of the world. When people are depressed, they often feel overcome by a comprehensive and yet hard to pin down sadness. But Johnson jumps directly into the pain, pins it down, dissects it, and partially disarms it. In his essay on sorrow he observes that most passions drive you to their own extinction. Hunger leads to eating and satiety, fear leads to flight, lust leads to sex. But sorrow is an exception. Sorrow doesn’t direct you toward its own cure. Sorrow builds upon sorrow. That’s because sorrow is “that state of mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a tormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession we have lost.” Many try to avoid sorrow by living timid lives. Many try to relieve sorrow by forcing themselves to go to social events. Johnson does not approve of these stratagems. Instead, he advises, “The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment…. Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life and is remedied by exercise and motion.

Pain builds character and character is the foundation of your faith and your faith manifest your dreams.

It is in difficult times we must remember that whatever burden we carry, it can make us stronger and build more character in us. We don’t grow from an easy life. Ease makes us like cattle sitting in the field and grazing. Existing without purpose or drive or desire. When pain or complications come to us, that is when we must become ALIVE. Our intellects begin to function at full power. We have desire and drive and acquire the power to CREATE solutions to these complications. We are no longer cattle. We stand up and become MEN of action!

Pastor Ben Bonner was a balding man with a face lined by laughter and pain, and eyes that always held more hope than despair. Barely as tall as Calum’s chest but stout as an oak, he clasped Calum’s forearm and pulled him into a fatherly embrace.

chi ku,” which translates to “eat bitterness.” Eating bitterness is seen as strength in our culture. Accepting and pushing through pain without complaint or anger is how you build character.

Problems, pain, and suffering are all part of the human condition. Not only so we know what happiness is, but also because they build character, change us, teach us.

If now -- and this is my idea -- there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life. To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dishwashing, clotheswashing, and windowwashing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare against nature; they would tread the earth more proudly, the women would value them more highly, they would be better fathers and teachers of the following generation. Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one's life. I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until and equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skilful propogandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities. The martial type of character can be bred without war. Strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound everywhere. Priests and medical men are in a fashion educated to it, and we should all feel some degree if its imperative if we were conscious of our work as an obligatory service to the state. We should be owned, as soldiers are by the army, and our pride would rise accordingly. We could be poor, then, without humiliation, as army officers now are. The only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the civic temper as part history has inflamed the military temper.

Sometimes, pain is only pain, Ell. It don’t make you stronger. It don’t build no character. It only hurts.

Broken (The Sonnet) The most effective people, On earth are all broken. The people with most excellence, Are all broken. There is no excellence without brokenness, For brokenness builds character. Broken, and in agony, that's how we grow, One who knows pain knows to help another. Pain is not our enemy, Pain is what keeps us alert. To avoid pain is to avoid growth, To avoid pain is to keep the heart shut. Embrace pain, and pain will have no hold over you. Once accepted, in brokenness you'll find yourself anew.

There are many reasons to improve our awareness of God’s active presence in our lives. The best reason is the guidance and friendship we receive from “checking in” with God throughout the day. Other benefits include healing emotional wounds, enhancing character and building community. This booklet will help you learn the Immanuel journaling method for use in your life and fellowship community. The principles involved will be explained using biblical 1 truths for relating to God and neuroscience for improving our awareness. A more mindful attachment with God leads to clearer knowledge of who we can become. “ME,” my identity, is ultimately shaped by who I love and what pain I avoid. Love and the pain I avoid often compete within me to see whether my love or my fear of pain is stronger. As Christians we know “God is love” (1

It takes a lot of heart to build trust, Even more to keep the trust. But what if both hearts are in pieces, How will they ever overcome their past! The answer is really quite simple, and yet, It is the last revelation to be crystal clear. Seek not for perfection but for the being, Broken in heart but intact in character. The road to joy is paved with broken hearts, Broken heart is something to cherish not mourn. Heart not broken is a heart devoid of life, That's how the pieces of two fit together as one.

No Pain, No Hope (The Sonnet) Heavier the pain, greater the hope, But the language of hope is not inaction. Real hope brings a sense of responsibility, Whereas imitation hope induces stagnation. Heavier the pain, stronger the purpose, But all purpose is fiction without footwork. Real purpose does not let you sleep at night, Imitation purpose keeps you aloof from work. Crueler the punishment, braver the love, It is no love that avoids punishment. Only half lovers try to keep pain at bay, Soaked in pain true lovers emerge triumphant. Crazier the torture, sweeter the memories. There is no character if there is no crisis.

Suffering is painful, distressful, and hard. Why would we rejoice or glory in that? Because we know that God uses suffering to help us develop endurance, which produces character, which produces hope. God designs our sufferings to build us up so that we confidently expect him to do what he has promised.

No harvest without rain.

Night brings light, Injury generates elixir. Gale delivers gallantry, Clouds build character.

Contrary to what we have been taught to believe about religion, our heavenly Father has a heart to save and forgive rather than to punish or scold. When he forgives, he also forgets the wrong we’ve done (Hebrews 10:17). As we repent of our ways and turn from our sin, he covers over our sin. He doesn’t lose sight of who he created us to be, even on the darkest days. Our fallible minds can’t even fathom a love that doesn’t record each wrong done to it. Imagine a love that treats others according to their worth in Christ instead of the mistakes they’ve made. We are called to live in that same kind of love. We are called to model this same love and forgiveness to those who do us wrong. We are called to be living proof of God’s love. The apostle Paul wrote, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). Listen—we live in such a broken, offended, and hurting world. We create walls and unloving boundaries with each other, especially after someone has messed up or has committed a heinous act toward us. We build walls to protect ourselves from future pain. It makes sense to respond this way because we don’t want to feel pain. But unforgiveness is poison. It hurts the one who drinks it. Love keeps no record of the wrong done to it (1 Corinthians 13:5). Imagine if we sinned against God, then came back to him with a convicted heart and he had a wall up with us. Or because we had done so much wrong, he created a boundary to protect himself from us. That sounds strange, right? Pretty hard to imagine since that is so outside of his character. Should it not sound just as strange as a behavior coming from us, since we are called to imitate him (Ephesians 5:1)? No, we are not God, but we are certainly called to love like him. In fact, it’s a commandment to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39).

Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Spread kindness, and be the creators. Of a world that’s loving, and full of compassion, A world that’s peaceful, and free of aggression. We’re all human, and we all have a heart, It’s time to break the barriers, and make a new start. To see beyond our differences, and embrace our similarities, To build a world of unity, where we all can live in clarity. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s come together, and be the regulators. Of a world that’s inclusive, and free of hate, A world that’s accepting, and celebrates diversity’s fate. It’s time to listen, and hear each other’s stories, To understand the struggles, and the pains and the glories. To walk in each other’s shoes, and feel the empathy, To create a world of justice, where love is the remedy. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread love, and be the cultivators. Of a world that’s kind, and filled with grace, A world that’s caring, and never loses pace. We’re all a part of this world, this community, It’s time to break the walls, and embrace our unity. To see that we’re all equal, and our differences make us unique, To build a world of harmony, where love is what we seek. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread positivity, and be the creators. Of a world that’s bright, and filled with light, A world that’s hopeful, and never loses sight. It’s time to stand up, and be the change, To fight for what’s right, and never act strange. To speak out against hate, and spread love instead, To create a world of kindness, where love is always led. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread joy, and be the motivators. Of a world that’s happy, and filled with laughter, A world that’s peaceful, and never loses its character. It’s time to unite, and hold each other’s hands, To build a world of love, that forever stands. To lift each other up, and never tear down, To create a world of love, where love is always found. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread hope, and be the liberators. Of a world that’s free, and filled with love, A world that’s caring, and always above.

Despite an overwhelming amount of well-intentioned nonsense that we now teach our children, it actually is not enough to try hard. Yes, it’s good to try hard. It is even better to try hard and—after suffering numerous setbacks and working through hardship and pain and temporary defeat—to achieve, to master. Trying hard builds character, but it is only the achievement that follows the effort that builds true confidence. We teach children that it doesn’t matter whether they win or lose, it’s how they play the game. But this lesson can be taught poorly or well. Taught poorly, this lesson results in children who are careless of the outcome of their actions, who are more concerned with double- and triple-checking their inner state than with measuring themselves against the world. Taught well, though, this lesson makes clear that while the valiant might lose many, many times, the object of the valiant is to persevere until victory.

Pain builds character.

There is a principle that is often painful to young intercessors who are full of zeal: God is not in a hurry. He takes the time He needs to build His character in us. He will patiently and methodically clean up our wicked hearts so He can allow us to pray His purposes into human affairs. Most of us want everything to happen immediately, but God loves to marinate.

We’re talking about productive pain. The kind that produces growth, that builds a base and builds character, that gets you closer to achieving your vision. The great Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami once wrote, “I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.” I’ve learned over the years that this is true: pain only needs to have meaning to you for it to be bearable.