Characterise Quotes & Sayings

Wallace would have none of it. In reviewing The Descent of Man he wrote, 'Are we to believe that the actions of an ever varying fancy for a slight change of colour could produce and fix the definite colours and markings which actually characterise species?' Furthermore, he said, it was unacceptable to suggest that birds had an aesthetic sense. That would be crediting a bird with a human characteristic for which there was no evidence. It would be anthropomorphism at its most unjustified. — David Attenborough

proponents of this 'ancient commune' theory argue that the frequent infidelities that characterise modern marriages, and the high rates of divorce, not to mention the cornucopia of psychological complexes from which both children and adults suffer, all result from forcing humans to live in nuclear families and monogamous relationships that are incompatible with our biological software.1 Many scholars vehemently reject this theory, insisting that both monogamy and the forming of nuclear families are core human behaviours. Though — Yuval Noah Harari

Schiller never wanted to replace the moral with the aesthetic but he did want the moral to be one part of the aesthetic. He rightly notes the aesthetic dimension of morality, that we use concepts like grace to characterise people who do their duty with ease and pleasure. — Frederick C. Beiser

Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. — John Donne

You know some religious scholars believe that when faced with overwhelming temptation you should commit a small sin just to relieve the pressure a bit. — Bree Despain

Chapter 4,'Organised abuse and the pleasures of disbelief', uses Zizek's (1991) insights into cite political role of enjoyment to analyse the hyperbole and scorn that has characterised the sceptical account of organised and ritualistic abuse. The central argument of this chapter is that organised abuse has come to public attention primarily as a subject of ridicule within the highly partisan writings of journalists, academics and activists aligned with advocacy groups for people accused of sexual abuse. Whilst highlighting the pervasive misrepresentations that characterise these accounts, the chapter also implicates media consumers in the production of ignorance and disdain in relation to organised abuse and women's and children's accounts of sexual abuse more generally. — Michael Salter

The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment. — Erwin Schrodinger

It's more complicated than that. I know them. They're not evil or cruel. They're not even smart. Hurting them, it's like hurting children. — Suzanne Collins

Society seems to find it irresistible to characterise the "unworldliness" of the male intellectual and academic in terms of his failure to control the women in his life. — Germaine Greer

It's fair to characterise me as competitive and determined, but anyone who works with me will attest to the fact I believe very strongly in the notion of servant leadership. — Irene Rosenfeld

I've always been really good with my heels. Even pregnant, I could perform in heels. — Christina Aguilera

Creative thought must always contain a random component. — Gregory Bateson

Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is a consummate Hollywood entertainment
rich in fantasy and blithely amoral. — J. Hoberman

It's hard for me to characterise myself. I think I'm balanced. Some people might say I'm cold-hearted. — Beny Steinmetz

I've never tried to measure myself on any scale. A person is more multifaceted than the label they often get stuck with. On the other hand someone's whole behaviour allows you to characterise them in a certain way. This person has liberal convictions, that person has conservative ones, this person is a radical socialist, and so on. — Dmitry Medvedev

Don't get too chummy with me, Cas. I'll eat you alive." - Swift
... "Was that a threat? God, you're the least intimidating pirate I've ever had the misfortune to meet." - Cas — Emily Skrutskie

See the bints? They might be soft on the outside, but see on the inside? They've got hearts on them like Hygena worktops. — Ian Pattison

The man who did the shooting was a civilian, Peter Kakhovsky, a gifted intellectual of extreme purity of motive in whom the conviction of the necessity of regicide burned with a gem-like flame. Determined to kill, expecting to die, this brilliant and terrible apparition, his slender form bundled up in a sheepskin coat, his delicate features surmounted by a shabby top hat, shot to kill with that indiscriminate ruthlessness which was later to characterise a whole generation of revolutionary terrorists. If he could not yet murder the Tsar, he would do the next best thing. — Edward Crankshaw

The problem of how to characterise the properties that would trivialise the principle is one of the hardest problems concerning the principle of identity of indiscernibles and one the problems to which least attention has been paid of. — Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

You kissed her? You kissed my mate?"
"Actually, the more I think about it, she kissed me. But I kissed her back."
"You kissed?" Breccan asked again.
"Yes. We kissed. Mouths tangled. Tongues involved. Kissed."
"I know what it means! Care to elaborate?"
"At one point she screamed. — Madison Thorne Grey

You may have gathered that I am not the most cheerful of revellers - some characterise me as the death and soullessness of any party but it wasn't always so, believe me. — Will Self

The real battle for Christians today is not Armageddon, it is the battle for a sensible approach to that ancient library of books we call the Bible. The Bible was written by human beings, with all the longings, prejudices and illusions that characterise us as a species. It is not an apocalyptic almanac, a mystical code book, an inerrant textbook for living. It is a compendium of a particular people's struggle with meaning; so it should encourage us to do the same in our day. — Richard Holloway

I don't have a brother in real life. — Louis C.K.

Meditate." Meditation doth discriminate and characterise a man; by this he may take a measure of his heart, whether it be good or bad; let me allude to that; "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7. As the meditation is, such is the man. Meditation is the touchstone of a Christian; it shows what metal he is made of. It is a spiritual index; the index shows what is in the book, so meditation shows what is in the heart. Thomas Watson's Saints — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Winning or losing achieves the same result
change. — Shannon L. Alder

The EU report speaks for itself. The statement in my view shows that the mission has turned out to be something worse than a farce, ... We shall in the coming days and weeks see what we can do to expose the pack of lies and innuendoes that characterise the garbage in this report. — Meles Zenawi

Ginger: "Ey, woman. If you characterise people on their actions rather than what they say, then it is easy not to be fooled by whatever logic they attempt to spout. — Michael Rogers

I can do no more than characterise, and recommend, the Alexander treatment as an extremely sophisticated form of rehabilition, or rather of re-deployment, of the entire muscular equipment, and through that of many other organs. Compared with this, many types of physiotherapy which are now in general use look surprisingly crude and restricted in their effect - and sometimes even harmful to the rest of the body. — Nikolaas Tinbergen

I believe the NME have deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist in a recent interview in order to boost their circulation. I abhor racism and cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass. — Steven Morrissey