Character is the most important of the three qualities I look for when considering someone for a key job. The other two, intelligence and energy, can actually be liabilities if strong character is lacking.
-- Warren Buffet, in an address at the Harvard Business School, Sep 1997
Brains and learning, like muscle and physical skill, are articles of commerce. They are bought and sold. You can hire them by the year or by the hour. The only thing in the world not for sale is character. And if that does not govern and direct your brains and learning, they will do you and the world more harm than good.
-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a commencement address at the College of William and Mary, 1996