Characteristics Quotes - Page 7

• If I had to define life in a single phrase, I should clearly express my thought of throwing into relief one characteristic which, in my opinion, sharply differentiates biological science. I should say: life is creation.

  Claude Bernard

  Life, Science, Relief

  Claude Bernard “Experimental Medicine”, Transaction Publishers

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• The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clearcut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.

  Max Wertheimer

  Science, Law, Pieces

  "Productive thinking". Book by Max Wertheimer, p. 84, 1959.

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• I think it would be just to say the most essential characteristic of mind is memory, using this word in its broadest sense to include every influence of past experience on present reactions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Memories, Science, Past

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.285, Psychology Press

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• Another characteristic of mathematical thought is that it can have no success where it cannot generalize.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Success, Science, Thinking

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1933). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce: Exact logic (Published papers).. The Simplest mathematics”, Harvard University Press

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• Human beings never think for themselves. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

  Michael Crichton

  Fear, Thinking, Self

  "The Lost World". Book by Michael Crichton, 1995.

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• Of the many smells of Athens two seem to me the most characteristic - that of garlic, bold and deadly like acetylene gas. and that of dust, soft and warm and caressing like tweed.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Food, Two, Smell

  Evelyn Waugh (1930). “Labels: A Mediterranean Journal”

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• We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Inspirational, Life, Motivation

  "'Misión de la Universidad' ('Mission of the University')". Book by Jose Ortega y Gasset, translated by Howard Lee Nostrand, p. 73, 1946.

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• The puzzling thing is that there is really a curious coincidence between astrological and psychological facts, so that one can isolate time from the characteristics of an individual, and also, one can deduce characteristics from a certain time.

  Carl Jung

  Astrology, Facts, Coincidence

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• Humor must be one of the chief attributes of God. Plants and animals that are distinctly humorous in form and characteristics are God's jokes.

  Mark Twain

  Humorous, Animal, Plant

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.190, Courier Corporation

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• The first essential characteristics of nonviolent action is that it is creative.

  Hildegard Goss-Mayr

  Peace, Ubuntu, Creative

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• The main characteristics of effective leadership are intelligence, integrity or loyalty, mystique, humor, discipline, courage, self sufficieny and confidence.

  James Fisher

  Leadership, Confidence, Loyalty

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• Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Dance, Daughter, Sex

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.39, 谷月社

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• If there is one characteristic more than others that contemporary public worship needs to recapture it is this awe before the surpassingly great and gracious God.

  Henry Sloane Coffin

  Needs, Worship, Gracious

  Henry Sloane Coffin (1946). “The Public Worship of God”

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• Beyond doubt, the most salient characteristic of life in this latter half of the 19th Century is its SPEED

  William Rathbone Greg

  Time, Doubt, Half

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• Most people don't like to think. This is why human religions are so popular. It almost doesn't matter what the belief system is, as long as it's firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. It's God's way, they say. God's word. And there are those who will accept that. Gladly. Because, you see, it eliminates the need to think.

  Neale Donald Walsch

  Believe, Thinking, Long

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• If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, ''Here comes number seventy-one!''

  Richard DeVos

  Perseverance, Determination, Adversity

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• Tell the truth. Do your best no matter how trivial the task. Choose the difficult right over the easy wrong. Look out for the group before you look out for yourself. Don't whine or make excuses. Judge others by their actions and not by their race or other characteristics.

  James F. Amos

  Character, Race, Judging

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• Essential characteristics of a gentleman: The will to put himself in the place of others; the horror of forcing others into positions from which he would himself recoil; and the power to do what seems to him to be right without considering what others may say or think.

  John Galsworthy

  Character, Power, Thinking

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• Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are “poor and blank”. This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes, the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written; the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted.

  Mao Zedong

  Beautiful, Character, Reality

  "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) & Other Works".

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• The main characteristic of collectivism is that it does not take notice of the individual's will and moral self-determination. In the light of its philosophy the individual is born into a collective and it is "natural" and proper for him to behave as members of this collective are expected to behave. Expected by whom? Of course, by those individuals to whom, by the mysterious decrees of some mysterious agency, the task of determining the collective will and directing the actions of the collective has been entrusted.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Determination, Philosophy, Agency

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• My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends.

  Larry Flynt

  Friendship, Mother, Hate

  "Larry Flynt's Official Response to Jerry Falwell's Death". Pine Magazine, May 16, 2007.

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• The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.

  Herbie Hancock

  Compassion, Carpe Diem, Things In Life

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• Traces of nobility, gentleness, and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly.

  Walt Kelly

  People, Ugly, Trends

  Walt Kelly (1974). “Pogo revisited: containing the complete volumes of The Pogo poop book, Instant Pogo [and] The Jack Acid Society black book”, Simon & Schuster

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• The will to power, as the modern age from Hobbes to Nietzsche understood it, far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one. Power corrupts indeed when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before.

  Hannah Arendt

  Strong, Order, Envy

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• Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics... The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group.

  Emile Durkheim

  Reality, Thinking, Groups

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