Characteristics Quotes - Page 27

• If the most significant characteristic of man is the complex of biological needs he shares with all members of his species, then the best lives for the writer to observe are those in which the role of natural necessity is clearest, namely, the lives of the very poor.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Book, Men

  7 Copy quote

• It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors ... are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts-in short, the psychological factors-are considered as unimportant and secondary.

  Albert Einstein

  Military, Desire, Essentials

  7 Copy quote

• It is characteristic of spontaneous friendship to take on first, without enquiry and almost at first sight, the unseen doings and unspoken sentiments of our friends; the parts known give us evidence enough that the unknown parts cannot be much amiss.

  George Santayana

  Friendship, Sight, Giving

  George Santayana (1953). “Persons and Places: My host the world”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Passion, Men, Vanity

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.189, Oxford University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable.

  Charles Dudley Warner

  Memories, Past, Journey

  Charles Dudley Warner (1871). “My Summer in a Garden”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's characteristic of democracy that majority rule is understood as being effective not only in politics but also in thinking. In thinking, of course, the majority is always wrong.

  Joseph Campbell

  Thinking, Majority Rule, Democracy

  Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• One can think of a secretary actively operating a filing system, of a librarian actively cataloguing books, of a computer actively sorting out information. The mind however does not actively sort out information. The information sorts itself out and organises itself into patterns. The mind is passive. The mind only provides an opportunity for the information to behave in this way. The mind provides a special environment in which information can become self-organising. This special environment is a memory surface with special characteristics.

  Edward de Bono

  Memories, Book, Thinking

  Edward De Bono (2010). “Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step”, p.14, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sexual behavior in our species goes through three characteristic phases: pair formation, precopulatory activity, and copulation, usually but not always in that order. The pair-formation stage, usually referred to as courtship, is remarkably prolonged by animal standards.

  Desmond Morris

  Animal, Order, Three

  Desmond Morris (1986). “The illustrated naked ape: a zoologist's study of the human animal”, Crown Pub

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• In this society, the norm of masculinity is phallic aggression. Male sexuality is, by definition, intensely and rigidly phallic. A man's identity is located in his conception of himself as the possessor of a phallus; a man's worth is located in his pride in phallic identity. The main characteristic of phallic identity is that worth is entirely contingent on the possession of a phallus. Since men have no other criteria for worth, no other notion of identity, those who do not have phalluses are not recognized as fully human.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Pride, Men, Identity

  19 Copy quote

• Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

  Arnold Bennett

  Art, Book, Reading

  1896 Journal entry,15 Oct.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Expulsion and genocide, though both are international offenses, must remain distinct; the former is an offense against fellow-nations, whereas the latter is an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a characteristic of the "human status" without which the very words "mankind" or "humanity" would be devoid of meaning.

  Hannah Arendt

  Diversity, Humanity, Would Be

  Hannah Arendt (2006). “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”, p.235, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The political is replacing the metaphysical as the characteristic mode of grasping reality.

  Harvey Cox

  Reality, Political, Politician

  Harvey Cox (1966). “The Secular City”

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Joy is the characteristic by which God uses us to re-make the distressing into the desired, the discarded into the creative. Joy is prayer-Joy is strength-Joy is love-Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

  Mother Teresa

  Prayer, Creative, Joy

  4 Copy quote

• Real cars were made here in America: Fords, Chevys, Plymouths. These were large chunks of Detroit iron - cars that had the size, weight, and handling characteristics of aircraft carriers but worse fuel efficiency.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Real, Humorous

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Does Japan”, p.8, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Americans are extremely gadget minded people and American gadgets have a peculiar characteristic: they work.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, America

  George Mikes (1959). “How to scrape skies: the United States explored, rediscovered and explained”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since I reached the conclusion that the essence of the creative person is being in love with what one is doing, I have had a growing awareness that this characteristic makes possible all the other personality characteristics of the creative person: independence of thought and judgment, honesty, perseverance, curiosity, willingness to take risks and the like.

  Ellis Paul Torrance

  Perseverance, Honesty, Being In Love

  26 Copy quote

• May we attribute to the color of the herbage and plants, which no doubt clothe the plains of Mars, the characteristic hue of that planet, which is noticeable by the naked eye, and which led the ancients to personify it as a warrior?

  Camille Flammarion

  Eye, Warrior, Science

  8 Copy quote

• Posterity will do justice to that unprincipled maniac Gladstone - extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition; and with one commanding characteristic - whether Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, whether preaching, praying, speechifying or scribbling - never a gentleman.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Justice, Hypocrisy, Envy

  c.1874 Letter.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• But it would be absolutely mistaken to regard a wealth of theoretical knowledge as characteristic proof for the qualities and abilities of a leader.

  Adolf Hitler

  Education, Science, Leader

  Adolf Hitler (1971). “Mein Kampf”, Mariner Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Obesity is the result of a loss of self-control. Indeed, loss of self-control might be said to be the defining social (or anti-social) characteristic of our age: public drunkenness, excessive gambling, promiscuity and common-or-garden rudeness are all examples of our collective loss of self-control.

  Theodore Dalrymple

  Loss, Garden, Gambling

  4 Copy quote

• The term of life of a dynasty does not normally exceed three generations. For in the first generation are still preserved the characteristic features of rough, uncivilized rural life, such as hard conditions of life, courage, ferocity, and partnership in authority. Therefore the strength of the 'Asabiya is maintained.

  Ibn Khaldun

  History, Rural Life, Doe

  411 Copy quote

• The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust

  Brennan Manning

  Spiritual, Gratitude, Suffering

  10 Copy quote

• For poets today or in any age, the choice is not between freedom on the one hand and abstruse French forms on the other. The choice is between the nullity and vanity of our first efforts, and the developing of a sense of idiom, form, structure, metre, rhythm, line - all the fundamental characteristics of this verbal art.

  James Fenton

  Art, Vanity, Hands

  "An Introduction to English Poetry". Book by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2002.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man alone, during his brief existence on this earth, is free to examine, to know, to criticize, and to create. In this freedom lies his superiority over the forces that pervade his outward life. He is that unique organism in terms of matter and energy, space and time, which is urged to conscious purpose. Reason is his characteristic and indistinguishing principle. But man is only man -- and free -- when he considers himself as a total being in whom the unmediated whole of feeling and thought is not severed and who impugns any form of atomization as artificial, mischievous, and predatory.

  Ruth Nanda Anshen

  Lying, Unique, Men

  Ruth Nanda Anshen (1971). “Language: An Enquiry Into Its Meaning and Function”, Associated Faculty PressInc

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reprogramming the unconscious beliefs that block fuller awareness of creative/intuitive capabilities depends upon a key characteristic of the mind, namely that it responds to what is vividly imagined as though it were real experience.

  Willis Harman

  Block, Real, Keys

  13 Copy quote