Characteristic Quotes

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

Mr. Truman studiously avoided giving power to his White House staff that has been characteristic of recent administrations. Staff people in the White House, with no responsibility but incredible authority is one of the reasons we're now in so much trouble.

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

The medieval hall house was very primitive when it became the characteristic form of dwelling of the landowner of the Middle Ages.

Indian names were either characteristic nicknames given in a playful spirit, deed names, birth names, or such as have a religious and symbolic meaning.

It is characteristic of the epistemological tradition to present us with partial scenarios and then to demand whole or categorical answers as it were.

I'm definitely responsible for the image that I put out there. But it does become frustrating, because I don't want 'sexy' to be my defining characteristic. I'd love for my ambition and will and intellect and sense of humour to define me as well.

Laziness has become the chief characteristic of journalism, displacing incompetence.

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.

The characteristic of coquettes is affectation governed by whim.

People who work on the user interface side need to have empathy as a key characteristic. But if you are writing device drivers you don't really need to understand humans so well.

In a government whose distinguishing characteristic should be a diffusion and equalization of its benefits and burdens the advantage of individuals will be augmented at the expense of the community at large.

The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it for life.

The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.

Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.

It is characteristic that this should take place just when it is becoming more and more clear to all who think about the matter, that technically and economically we have left the territorial state behind us.

The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.

A characteristic of older folksongs, in most cases, is that we don't know their composers or authors. Older folksongs were written often with no commercial purpose in mind. They were passed down by word of mouth, from generation to generation.

It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

Certain characteristic properties of elements can be foretold from their atomic weights.

I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.

The self has the characteristic that it is an object to itself, and that characteristic distinguishes it from other objects and from the body.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.

The attitude of insolent haughtiness is characteristic of the relationships Americans form with what is alien to them, with others.

We must recognize the chief characteristic of the modern era - a permanent state of what I call violent peace.

Identity in the form of continuity of personality is an extremely important characteristic of the individual.

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.