Characteristic Quotes - page 16

Hegemonic powers often use assimilation as a tool when they are confronted with defiant ethnic groups. Language and culture are also carriers of potential resistance, which can be desiccated by assimilation. banning the native language and enforcing the use of a foreign language are effective tools. People who are no longer able to speak their native language will no longer cherish its characteristic, which are rooted in ethnic, geographic and cultural factors. Without the unifying element of language the uniting quality of collective ideas also disappear. (Abdullah Öcalan)
If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict - and of tragedy - can never wholly be eliminated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. This gives its value to freedom as Acton conceived of it - as an end in itself, and not as a temporary need, arising out of our confused notions and irrational and disordered lives, a predicament which a panacea could one day put right. View quote
Isaiah Berlin
Organisation is, after all, only a means to an end. When it becomes an end in itself, it kills the spirit and the vital initiative of its members and sets up that domination by mediocrity which is the characteristic of all bureaucracies. View quote
Rudolf Rocker
High-consequence risks form one particular segment of the generalised 'climate of risk' characteristic of late modernity - one characterised by regular shifts in knowledge-claims as mediated by expert systems. View quote
Anthony Giddens
I can keep learning about all the different technologies. It's my most telling characteristic. I'm interested in trying anything new. View quote
Martha Stewart
The thing that's characteristic of my performance is that I literally do drag the whole studio onto the stage. View quote
Laurie Anderson
I had been a vegetarian ever since coming across the Theosophical teaching. My children had never tasted meat or chicken or fish and I suffered from the normal superiority complex which is often an outstanding characteristic of a vegetarian. View quote
Alice Bailey
The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it for life. View quote
Anna Letitia Barbauld
The only characteristic freaks share is our knowledge that we don't fit in. View quote
Kathy Acker
Characteristic of our times are the concepts of complexity, growth and change. View quote
Harold Chestnut
Instances of grave tactical blunders are certainly not lacking in the history of war, but it is characteristic of tactical errors that tend to be self-exposing, if not in relation to some theoretical ideal then at least in relation to the best the enemy can do. In the past, it has usually been possible for strong nations to recover from them, even if at a heavy cost in blood and possibly strategic position. Strategic errors may or may not expose themselves in some obvious fashion during the course of a war, or even afterwards, and they are therefore much less likely to damage the reputations of those responsible for them. (Bernard Brodie)
The university is being called upon to educate previously unimagined numbers of students; to respond to the expanding claims of national service; to merge its activities with industry as never before. Characteristic of this transformation is the growth of the knowledge industry, which is coming to permeate government and business, and to draw into it more and more people raised to higher and higher levels of skill. The production, distribution and consumption of knowledge is said to account for 29 percent of gross national product, and knowledge production is growing at about twice the rate of the rest of the economy. What the railroads did for the second half of the last century, and the automobile for the first half of this century, may be done for the second half of this century by the knowledge industry; and that is, to serve as the focal point for national growth. View quote
Clark Kerr
It often happens that we are most touched by what we are least capable of. Evanescent delicacy is not the quality in the arts that I admire most, but it is often the characteristic by which I am most reduced to envy. View quote
Clive James
Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic. View quote
Oscar Wilde
The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. View quote
Adlai Stevenson II
If we are asked what is the most essential characteristic that underlies this word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, to absence of such things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for other people. View quote
Samuel Butler (novelist)
It is obvious that teaching is a very special art, sharing with only two other arts, agriculture and medicine, an exceptionally important characteristic A doctor may do many things for his patient, but in the final analysis, it is the patient himself who must get well, grow in health. The farmer does many things for his plants or animals, but in the final analysis, it is they that must grow in size and excellence. Similarly, although the teacher may help his student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning. Knowledge must grow in his mind if learning is to take place. View quote
Mortimer Adler
Essential characteristic of the really great novelist a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion. View quote
Arnold Bennett
I.Q. deficiency. There are some people who are an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, and what is often a characteristic about every one of these people is that they don't know it. They have no idea how incompetent or stupid they are. It's the exact opposite. They have the loftiest, highest self-image. View quote
Rush Limbaugh
The defects of rationalistic, critical philosophy are much more important than they appear at first sight. By failing to take into account political faculties and the art of eloquence, this philosophy disregards two of the most important branches of human activity. ... Vico formulates this idea clearly in De studiorum ratione: "But this order of studies brings with it the disadvantage for young people, that in the future they will neither show intelligence in civil life, not be able to enliven a speech with characteristic colors and warm it with the fire of emotions.”. View quote
Ernesto Grassi
A principal characteristic of technique ... is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. (Jacques Ellul)
A man receiving charity always hates his benefactor- it is a fixed characteristic of human nature. View quote
George Orwell
The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition. The experimental habit of mind is a difficult one for most people to maintain; indeed, the science of one generation has already become the tradition of the next. View quote
Bertrand Russell
In the first place a philosophical proposition must be general. It must not deal specially with things on the surface of the earth, or within the solar system, or with any other portion of space and time.... This brings us to a second characteristic of philosophical propositions, namely that they must be a priori. A philosophical proposition must be such as can neither be proved nor disproved by empirical evidence.... Philosophy, if what has been said is correct, becomes indistinguishable from logic as that word has now come to be used. View quote
Bertrand Russell
the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight. . . It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead. View quote
Theodore Roosevelt