Character

According to Google, 'Character' is a "the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual."

As one of my favorites, Mr Wolfe in Pulp Fiction pointed out:

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Two of my biggest gains of 2013 came from investing in companies led by very strong personalities, extraordinary people, real 'Characters'.   A series of profitable trades in strong uptrend of Navios Marine (NM) made me think of Angeliki Frangou each and every time. Its not an accident that while doing initial analysis of shipping industry in March 2013 (in Discovery at Sea post), I picked her interview out of all speakers of latest TradeWinds conference.  Mindboggling 400% profit in TSLA was delivered courtesy of Mr. Elon Musk of Tesla (TSLA) and SolarCity (SCTY). I actually started investing in SCTY in this post (link),  based solely on "young faces of their management team". Company just came public, so I had no indicators, no support/resistance, no earnings, no price history. I wrote:

...it gives me real pleasure to see young faces of their management team. I am a pretty good  face reader, and I am smiling looking at these boys and girls... ...management of SCTY are young, ambitious, driven young people. In finance it's bad, in service/manufacturing it is a combination that been changing the world thru-out history. Look up Elon Musk and see what he did, and what he set out to do.
Having said that, my stop is below most recent low, until further instructions...

“Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
― Abraham Lincoln

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
- HELEN KELLER (1880-1968) American blind and deaf writer/lecturer

 “Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.”
― Harry S. Truman

 “Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.”
― Ayn Rand

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I find it bit alarming that usage of the word 'Character' has been dwindling over past 150 years

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Wally Weitz, whose flagship Weitz Partners Value Fund is celebrating its thirty year anniversary, and Tom Russo, with his market-beating Semper Vic Partners Fund

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This is how Marc Faber lives
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