Fernando Pessoa on character

Love is essential. Sex, a mere accident.

Was it worthwhile?
Everything is worthwhile
if the soul is not small.

Everyone has his vanity, and each one’s vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul.

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.

John Wooden1910–2010

Noble character is best appreciated in those ages in which it can most readily develop.

Tacitus55–120

Character is higher than intellect… A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.

Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The American Scholar (1837), par. 27