Characteristics Quotes - Page 36

• Love brings to light the lofty and hidden characteristics of the lover--what is rare and exceptional in him: to that extent it caneasily be deceptive with respect to what is normal in him.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Love, Light, Normal

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• It is the characteristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion to the hasty and the deliberate reader. To the practical they will be common sense, and to the wise wisdom; as either the traveler may wet his lips, or an army may fill its water-casks at a full stream.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Army

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.147, Princeton University Press

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• repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the
  sea;
  the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.

  Marianne Moore

  Sea, Looks, Return

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.49, Penguin

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• You have lived longer than I have and perhaps may have formed a different judgment on better grounds; but my observations do not enable me to say I think integrity the characteristic of wealth. In general I believe the decisions of the people, in a body, will be more honest and more disinterested than those of wealthy men.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Integrity, Believe, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.278, Penguin

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• Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.

  Victor Hugo

  Drama, Epic, History

  Victor Hugo (1909). “The Works of Victor Hugo ...”

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• The Persians are called the French of the East; we will call the Arabs Oriental Italians. A gifted noble people; a people of wildstrong feelings, and of iron restraint over these: the characteristic of noblemindedness, of genius.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Iron, People, Feelings

  Thomas Carlyle (2016). “Heroes and Hero Worship: The Historian”, p.43, 北戴河出版

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• This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management ofexternal things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Character, Skills, Soul

  Thomas Carlyle (1855). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: By Thomas Carlyle”, p.193

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• In England if something goes wrong--say, if one finds a skunk in the garden--he writes to the family solicitor, who proceeds to take the proper measures; whereas in America, you telephone the fire department. Each satisfies a characteristic need; in the English, love of order and legalistic procedure; and here in America, what you like is something vivid, and red, and swift.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Writing, Garden, Order

  Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.164, David R. Godine Publisher

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• A nation's domestic and foreign policies and actions should be derived from the same standards of ethics, honesty and morality which are characteristic of the individual citizens of the nation.

  Jimmy Carter

  Honesty, Government, Citizens

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• There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.

  Karl Marx

  Party, Hands, Decay

  Karl Marx, David McLellan (2000). “Karl Marx: Selected Writings”, p.368, Oxford University Press, USA

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• I would write of the universal, not the provincial, in human nature.... I would write of characters, not of characteristics.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Writing, Character, Human Nature

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• Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves toward fools.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Men, Fool, He Man

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• The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings.they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable.

  Ruth Benedict

  Strong, Kings, Freedom

  Ruth Benedict (2011). “An Anthropologist at Work”, p.392, Transaction Publishers

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• It seems to be a characteristic of all great work that it creators wear a cloak of imprecision.

  Fred Hoyle

  Great Work, Cloaks, Creator

  Fred Hoyle (1966). “Of Men and Galaxies”, p.24, University of Washington Press

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• Human life is so strangely constituted that even perfected intellectual understanding combined with the richest experience is incapable of conquering innate weaknesses. Even if it thoroughly analyzes itself, psychology (and this is one of the dubious aspects of psychoanalysis) can, to be sure, recognize its flawed native characteristics, but it cannot eliminate them. Understanding (them) is not the same as overcoming (them) and, again and again, we see the wisest of human beings helpless in the fact of their small follies which everyone else observes with a smile.

  Stefan Zweig

  Psychology, Understanding, Intellectual

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• When I was in grade school and we had to write papers about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wanted to be a social worker or a missionary or a teacher... Then I got involved with tennis, and everything was just me, me, me. I was totally selfish and thought about myself and nobody else, because if you let up for one minute, someone was going to come along and beat you. I really wouldn't let anyone or any slice of happiness enter... I didn't like the characteristics that it took to become a champion.

  Chris Evert

  Happiness, Teacher, Selfish

  "'I've Lived A Charmed Life'". Interview with Sally Jenkins, www.si.com. May 25, 1992.

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• What are the characteristics of today's world so that one may recognize it by them?" It pays pensions and borrows money: credit and monuments.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Money, Today, Credit

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• The characteristic merit of the English constitutions is, that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable, while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and modern.

  Walter Bagehot

  Simple, Merit, Action

  Walter Bagehot (1930). “The English Constitution: And Other Political Essays”, p.38, Lulu.com

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• Each man forms his duty according to his predominant characteristic; the stern require an avenging judge; the gentle, a forgiving father. Just so the pygmies declared that Jove himself was a pygmy.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Father, Character, Men

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• Strive, while improving your one talent, to enrich your whole capital as a man. It is in this way that you escape from the wretched narrow-mindedness which is the characteristic of every one who cultivates his specialty alone.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Men, Way, Study

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• Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in everycountry, but in England they are national characteristics.

  E. M. Forster

  Integrity, Character, Class

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• The British have their own conception of what constitutes the typical American. He must have a flavor of the Wild West about him. He must do spectacular things. He must not be punctilious about dignity, decorum and other refinements characteristic of the real British gentleman. The Yankee pictured by the Briton must be a bustler. If he is occasionally flagrantly indiscreet in speech and action, then he is so much more surely stamped the genuine article. The most typical American the British ever set their eyes on was, in their judgment, Theodore Roosevelt.

  B. C. Forbes

  Real, Eye, America

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• We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind.

  Michael Crichton

  Self, May, Three

  Michael Crichton (2002). “Prey”

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• The art of investment has one characteristic that is not generally appreciated. A creditable, if unspectacular, result can be achieved by the lay investor with a minimum of effort and capability; but to improve this easily attainable standard requires much application and more than a trace of wisdom. If you merely try to bring just a little extra knowledge and cleverness to bear upon your investment program, instead of realizing a little better than normal results, you may well find that you have done worse.

  Benjamin Graham

  Art, Effort, Trying

  Benjamin Graham (2009). “The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed”, p.9, Harper Collins

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• Brioches are a light, pale yellow, faintly sweet kind of muffin with a characteristic blob on top, rather like a mushroom just pushing crookedly through the ground. Once eaten in Paris, they never taste as good anywhere else.

  M. F. K. Fisher

  Sweet, Food, Pale Yellow

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