Emerge or Emergency?

I was considering what to write about today and had decided to make it like a potpourri of quotes.  I have a book of quotes on different subjects.  Some to me are really good and inspiring.
I had several that I was going to write on about different topics.  Then Merril told me that a group raided and trashed a shop yesterday.  That make me think deeper about one of the topics I was looking at.  It was character.
The quote I feel was most pertinent of the ones I had was, “everyone journeys through character as well as time.  The person one becomes depends on the person one has been.”  Dick Francis
That highlights to me that character is built.  If what is built is a corner store it does not suddenly become a bank.  By that I mean, what we do does not suddenly transform depending on the circumstance.  The circumstance reveals what we are. 
It is a variation of what was said the other day.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Conversely good stuff in, good stuff out.
I must confess I have a hard time hearing “I would have done better” or of someone who professes a better way but is not doing.  It is only by doing that one understands all that is involved.  The time, the effort, the getting it right and getting it wrong.  The learning of what works and what does not.  It is reflected in another quote I read. “We know what another thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.” Isaac Bashevis Singer.
To me actions determine future responses.  If I grow up knowing no boundaries or disciple, is it any wonder my actions reflect that.  The opposite is true too and I think a quote by John Stuart Mill says it well.  “Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians.”
To me that is true of any profession be it specialist or labourer or home keeper.  What I am is what I become.