Quotessence
Home / Topics / Characteristics Quotes

Characteristics Quotes

Browse 1202 quotes about Characteristics.

Related topics

MenHumansIfsPeopleThinkingWayMindKnowsPersonsMayWorldCharacterImportantFormQualitySelfCertainKindFirstsDoeFactsIndividualNeedsGivingLooksTwoAgeEssentialsShouldScienceWellsHas BeensActionMeanWantBelieveDifferentStatesFeaturesTryingAbilityHuman BeingsReasonArtChildrenDefiningChiefsSpiritConditionsNaturalParticularSeemsUseCommonIdeasResultsWould BeEnoughFeelsGivenMadeRaceCreativeLeaderSocialUniqueWritingAttitudeCultureExistenceFundamentalsGovernmentLife IsMatterMoralNationsPersonalitySexSuccessfulThreeValuesWholeBodyBookFoundPeculiarProblemProcessSaidSpiritualUniversalHuman NatureI BelieveKnownLanguageLiteratureLongMightMomentsPoliticalmore

Characteristics Quotes

“The marvellous thing about writing, whether it be fiction or journalism, is that it is simultaneously the most intimate and the most anonymous of meetings between people. It is profoundly intimate in reaching into the psyche of another, at the same time as being devoid of social characteristics, cultural characteristics, economic characteristics.”

PeopleWritingSocialFictionEconomicMeetingsJournalismIntimateCharacteristicsReachingMarvellous
Author:Will Self
Create image

“I wrote three novels in six months, with a clarity of focus and attention to detail that I had never before experienced. This type of sublime creative energy is characteristic of the elevated and productive mood state known as hypomania.”

StatesThreeEnergyAttentionKnownNovelCreativeFocusTypeMonthsSixDetailsMoodClarityCharacteristicsProductiveSublimeSix MonthsCreative EnergyAttention To Detail
Book:A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life
Create image

“Anyone too undisciplined, too self-righteous or too self-centered to live in the world as it is has a tendency to idealize a world which ought to be. But no matter what political or religious direction such idealists choose, their visions always share one telling characteristic: in their utopias, heavens or brave new worlds, their greatest personal weakness suddenly appears to be a strength.”

WorldSelfMatterPoliticalHeavenReligiousVisionShareOughtWeaknessNo Matter WhatBraveTendenciesCharacteristicsNew WorldRighteousUtopiaSelf CenteredIdealistSelf RighteousBrave New WorldUndisciplined
Book:The Brothers K
Create image

“Akin to the idea that time is money is the concept, less spoken but as commonly assumed, that we may be adequately represented by money. The giving of money has thus become our characteristic virtue. But to give is not to do. The money is given in lieu of action, thought, care, time.”

GivingMayIdeasCareActionGivenVirtueConceptsCharacteristicsTime Is Money
Book:The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
Create image

“Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.”

HumansWholeBigsFoundBornViewsRaceMorningBabyEgoClothesRedWeakWake UpGlassesSuitsHuman RaceCharacteristicsCowardCostumesBlanketCritiqueUnsureKentAlter EgoKill Bill
Author:Quentin Tarantino
Create image

“Basic characteristics of an individual organism: to divide, to unite, to merge into the universal, to abide in the particular, to transform itself, to define itself, and as living things tend to appear under a thousand conditions, to arise and vanish, to solidify and melt, to freeze and flow, to expand and contract. Since these effects occur together, any or all may occur at the same moment.”

LifeMayMomentsTogetherScienceIndividualConditionsEffectsParticularThousandFlowUniversalAriseCharacteristicsContractsDividesOrganismsLiving ThingsFreeze
Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Create image

“I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless a film of flesh envelopes us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish. Death is divestment, death is communion. It may be wonderful to mix with the landscape, but to do so is the end of the tender ego.”

IfsKnowsMenMayEndsFilmLife IsDiesSpaceWonderfulEgoFleshLandscapeCharacteristicsCommunionTravelerSurroundingsEnvelopesHelmet
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Create image

“Perseverance means to continue in a given course until we have reached a goal or objective, regardless of obstacles, opposition, and other counterinfluences...Perseverance is a positive, active characteristic...It gives us hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except in giving up and no longer trying.”

GivingTryingMeanHelpingSufferingCoursesGivenGoalRealizingGiving UpPerseveranceObstaclesActiveObjectivesCharacteristicsOppositionRighteousLdsNo Failure
Author:Joseph B. Wirthlin
Create image

“I had all the characteristics of a human being—flesh, blood, skin, hair—but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that my normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning”

FeelsMindHumansRealityHuman BeingsAbilityCompassionGoneBloodHairNormalSkinsVictimCornersFleshIntenseCharacteristicsRoughOf My MindResemblancePsychoImitatingDepersonalization
Author:Bret Easton Ellis
Create image

“The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.”

MenWorldTryingCommonHeroFitGenuineWanderGenerosityImpulseCharacteristicsHeroicHeroismReconcileGreat PerseveranceBeing A HeroGreat Hero
Book:Essays and English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Five Foot Shelf of Classics, Vol. V (in 51 Volumes)
Create image

“I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe - what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in thetreatent, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing.”

KnowsBelieveHumansLongImportantFacesFormChoicesBeliefImagineEvidenceBraveryStrongerImportant ThingsShiningSakeContraryCuresThis LifeCharacteristicsBelieve In YourselfMortalityArticlesRemedyCatastropheHopelessnessValiant
Author:Lance Armstrong
Create image

“I would like to carve my novel in a piece of wood. My characters—I would like to have them heavier, more three-dimensional ... My characters have a profession, have characteristics; you know their age, their family situation, and everything. But I try to make each one of those characters heavy, like a statue, and to be the brother of everybody in the world.”

KnowsWorldTryingCharacterAgeThreeSituationNovelPiecesBrotherHeavyWoodsProfessionCharacteristicsStatues
Author:Georges Simenon
Create image

“One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world. Most people hardly ever realize this, because it is rare that the very same man thinks and puts his thought into action.”

PeopleThinkingMenWorldGivingEnoughShowsRealityActionLanguageRealizingProofCharacteristicsIndispensableInadequate
Author:Simone Weil
Create image

“I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.”

ThinkingKnowsFeelsHumansHuman BeingsEmotionClearBloodHairHappeningsSkinsGreedFleshHorribleCharacteristicsMaskSanitySlipsDisgustingVergePsychoFrenzyBloodlust
Author:Bret Easton Ellis
Create image

“But whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living. And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one for this (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I'm going to blame John Cusack.”

NeedsMindKindSeemsFallRelationshipShareNormalBlamePerceiveCharacteristicsMeaninglessInabilityCowardlyTranscendentMind BlowingUnifyingRomantic Relationship
Book:Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
Create image

“Rather than accepting that we are the loving beings that He created, we have arrogantly thought that we could create ourselves, and then create God. Because we are angry and judgmental, we have projected those characteristics onto Him. We have made up a God in our image. But God remains who He is and always has been: the energy, the thought of unconditional love.”

Has BeensMadeEnergyAcceptingRemainsAngryCharacteristicsUnconditional LoveUnconditionalJudgmental
Book:A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
Create image

“Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.”

MindTwoWholeQualityNovelImagineFashionSeriousPureEssentialsEarsFundamentalsComicRelateAtmosphereIronyAttractiveCharacteristicsUnexpectedTragicRegionsSurprisingTranslateCanvasAstonishingAbnormalLyricalGrotesqueDiscordGreat DayDreamyPompousFarcePantomimeIrregularity
Author:Charles Baudelaire
Create image

“Now death is uncool, old-fashioned. To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever we would like them to be that it comes as a profound outrage to encounter death, stubbornly unspinnable, only and immutably itself.”

MindUsedBandResearchProfoundBrandsErasCharacteristicsEncountersPreciseOld FashionedDefiningOutrageVanishingMarket ResearchTailoredUncoolSpecificationsVanishing Point
Author:Tana French
Create image

“The essential and defining characteristic of childhood is not the effortless merging of dream and reality, but only alienation. There are no words for childhood's dark turns and exhalations. A wise child recognizes it and submits to the necessary consequences. A child who counts the cost is a child no longer.”

ChildrenDreamRealityTurnsDarkWiseChildhoodCostEssentialsConsequenceCharacteristicsSubmitDefiningAlienationEffortlessDreams And RealityMerging
Book:'Salem's Lot
Create image

“The things that we preceive as beautiful may be different, but the actual characteristics we ascribe to beautiful objects are similar. Think about it. When something strikes us as beautiful, it displays more presence and sharpness of shape and vividness of color, doesn't it? It stands out. It shines. It seems almost iridescent compared to the dullness of other objects less attractive.”

ThinkingMayDifferentSeemsBeautifulObjectsColorShapesShiningStrikesAttractiveCharacteristicsDisplayStanding OutDullnessSharpnessCelestine ProphecyIridescentVividnessBeautiful Objects
Book:Celestine Insights - Limited Edition of Celestine Prophecy and Tenth Insight
Create image

“None of us is perfect. There was only one perfect man who ever walked the earth, and He was the Son of God. We all have weaknesses and I guess we all make mistakes and will make mistakes in the future, but look for the virtues, the strengths, the goodness in those with whom you labor, and draw those characteristics into your own lives and make them a part of yourselves, and you will be the richer for it all the days that you live.”

MenLooksEarthPerfectMistakeVirtueSonGoodnessDrawsWeaknessLaborCharacteristicsMaking MistakesPerfect ManWe All Make Mistakes
Author:Gordon B. Hinckley
Create image