“Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.”

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: I want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men to think alike. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike he would have made us alike. Why did he not do so? Why did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility be a Methodist? Why did he make yours so that you could not be a Catholic? And why did he make the brain of another so that he is an unbeliever — why the brain of another so that he became a Mohammedan — if he wanted us all to believe alike?
After all, maybe Nature is good enough and grand enough and broad enough to give us the diversity born of liberty. Maybe, after all, it would not be best for us all to be just the same. What a stupid world, if everybody said yes to everything that everybody else might say.
The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes — more important than gold or houses or lands — more important than art or science — more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.

The Quality You Need Most, from Green Book Magazine (April 1914)

King Arthur and his Noble Knights (1976)

im Gespräch mit Hans Küng über den Weltethos, 2007, YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S4KhE6nzzQ#t=5m8s

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: The questions are always more important than the answers."

Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)

Alternate translation: In this world, who you are is more important than what you are saying.
From his various literature
Source: Asa mi Asami