"Distinguishing characteristic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... A distinguishing characteristic of the series of ratios which represent the consonant intervals within the compass of an octave is that it advances by the addition of 1 to both terms: 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 4:5, and 5:6. Such a series always approaches unity, just as, represented ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... superficial similarities between the English and the French toy Bulldog, the one distinguishing characteristic being that in the French variety the ears are higher on the head and are held erect. Until a few years ago the two were interbred, but disputes as to their essential differences led the Kennel Club to intervene and the types have since been kept rigidly apart, the smart little ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... quality of Congreve. Villainy comes natural to the one, and beastliness drops from the other as easily as honey from the comb; but in neither is there evident that admirable effort of the intelligence which is a distinguishing characteristic of Congreve, and with neither is the result at once so consummate and so tame. For both Wycherley and Vanbrugh are playwrights, and Congreve is not. Congreve is only an artist in style writing for himself and half a dozen in the pit, while ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... copying his manuscript, which, from the frequent changes made, was in effect transcribed three times. By such labors was the immense mass of contemporary evidence brought into order, clearly narrated, and submitted to exact scientific criticism. For it is the distinguishing characteristic of the book, that it is a critical history, constantly illuminating facts by principles and deducing the most important maxims of political and military science from the abundant material lavishly contributed by the virtues, follies, and superabundant exertions of three great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... poetic culmination of modern times. Shakespeare is the drama; and the drama, which with the same breath moulds the grotesque and the sublime, the terrible and the absurd, tragedy and comedy—the drama is the distinguishing characteristic of the third epoch of poetry, of the literature of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... having many vital interests in common. Dr. Ripley was a true minister of the Gospel; Mr. Hosmer had studied for the ministry, and Mr. Hecker, as indicated, was a predestined priest. But, as I learned later, sincere and even affectionate cordiality was the distinguishing characteristic of the Brook Farmers in their relations with each other. Their communications were yea, yea, and nay, nay, but they were really glad to meet, glad to exchange greetings, glad to give and to take the good word which was always forthcoming, and glad to frankly manifest pleasure in their ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... the Taxation of the People by themselves or by Persons chosen by themselves to represent them, who can only know what Taxes the People are able to bear, and the easiest Mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such Taxes Themselves, is the distinguishing Characteristic of British Freedom and without which ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... daily pilgrimages which she made in spirit was invariably the Promised Land, every part of which she examined in detail, and which she saw sometimes in its present state, and sometimes as it was at different periods of sacred history; for her distinguishing characteristic and special privilege was an intuitive knowledge of the history of the Old and New Testaments, and of that of the members of the Holy Family, and of all the saints whom she was contemplating in spirit. She ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... Brahmans and Kshattriyas are but food, and death itself a condiment?' This passage intimates, by means of the words 'food' and 'condiment,' that there is some eater. A doubt then arises whether the eater be Agni or the individual soul or the highest Self; for no distinguishing characteristic is stated, and Agni as well as the individual soul and the highest Self is observed to form, in that Upanishad, the subjects ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... are all but heavenly: they are tender, dignified, lovely:—but when compared with Raffaelle's, they seem more touched with earthly feeling, and have less of the pure ideal: they are, if I may so express myself, too sentimental: sentiment is, in truth, the distinguishing characteristic of Guido's style. It is remarkable, that towards the end of his life, Guido more frequently painted the Mater Dolorosa, and gave to the heads of his Madonnas a look of melancholy, disconsolate resignation, which ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... powers of qualified appointment and qualified veto. It is to be observed also that there is no question of the interposition of the law of the land to regulate these powers. They are the governor's, by direct grant of the people, and his alone. Another distinguishing characteristic, equally important, is the fact that the governor was to be chosen by a constitutionally defined electorate, not by the legislature. He was also to have a three-year term, and there were to be no limitations on his re-eligibility to office. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... more to the prejudices of their fellow citizens, than to the standard of truth or probability. We have names of Persian kings, which a Persian could not pronounce; we have facts related they apparently never knew; and we have customs ascribed to them, which contradict every distinguishing characteristic of an Eastern people. The story of Lysimachus and one Greek historian may indeed, with justice, be applied to many others. This prince, in the partition of Alexander's empire, became King of Thrace: he had been one ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... scientific improvement; chemistry was first alchemy, and out of astrology sprang astronomy. In the childhood of those sciences the imagination opened a way, and furnished materials, on which the ratiocinative powers in a maturer state operated with success. The imagination is the distinguishing characteristic of man as a progressive being; and I repeat that it ought to be carefully guided and strengthened as the indispensable means and instrument of continued amelioration and refinement. Men of genius and goodness are generally restless in their ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... 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. Nor is it the nature of combinations for the acquisition of legislative influence to confine their interference ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... be careful not to accept the invitations of councilmen to drink, for they were sure to saddle the payment upon their guest, to say nothing of their lately adopted art of making invitations a means of supplying their own wants in the article of liquor. And as drinking had become their most distinguishing characteristic, perhaps it would not be amiss to defend myself, he said, after the fashion of our smaller politicians, who, as a general thing, invited councilmen to confer with them at the bar, and left the settlement to be arranged between them and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... or shortcomings which would not come to light when the captain was on the high-road to such disclosures; for a wise and discreet reticence was not his distinguishing characteristic, as ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... handsomest and costliest dwelling in the Union, and one of the handsomest private residences in the world. It is said to have cost upwards of two millions of dollars. "The marble work, which forms the most distinguishing characteristic of this palatial abode, receives its entire shape and finish in the basement and first floor of the building. The fluted columns (purely Corinthian, and with capitals elaborately and delicately carved), which are the most striking feature of the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... predicate—that names, though signs of individual conceptions, are all, without exception, derived from general ideas—is one of the most important discoveries in the science of language. It was known before that language is the distinguishing characteristic of man; it was known also that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes; but that these two were only different expressions of the same fact was not known till the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... replies the throwing-off young gentleman, 'I never saw any approach to them. I used to think my cousin's blue eyes lovely, but they grow dim and colourless beside yours.' 'Oh! a beautiful cousin, Mr. Caveton!' replies the young lady, with that perfect artlessness which is the distinguishing characteristic of all young ladies; 'an affair, of course.' 'No; indeed, indeed you wrong me,' rejoins the throwing-off young gentleman with great energy. 'I fervently hope that her attachment towards me may be nothing but the natural result of our close intimacy in childhood, and that ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the period from the earliest times of recorded history to the end of the Norman epoch. Its distinguishing characteristic is the extent to which quotations from contemporary authorities are introduced, with the purpose of throwing light upon the social usages, manners, and methods of thought of the Anglo-Saxons ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... first met on the upper margin of the silver fir zone, singly, in what appears as chance situations without making much impression on the general forest. Continuing up through the forests of the two-leaved pine it begins to show its distinguishing characteristic in the most marked way at an elevation of about 10,000 feet extending its tough, rather slender arms in the frosty air, welcoming the storms and feeding on them and reaching sometimes to the grand old ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... "Waverley Novels"—to the class that includes Beckford's Vathek, Godwin's Caleb Williams and St. Leon, Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein, and such "Gothic" romances as Lewis's Monk, Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho. A distinguishing characteristic of this whole school is what we may call the clumsy-horrible. Brown's romances are not wanting in inventive power, in occasional situations that are intensely thrilling, and in subtle analysis of character; but they are fatally defective in art. The narrative is by turns abrupt ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... set of sonnets on a single theme—is favorable to those pictures of common landscape and of daily life, redeemed from triviality by genial feeling and a perception of the lurking beautiful, which are the author's distinguishing characteristic. The scheme, too, enables him appropriately to indulge in theological and metaphysical reflections; where he is not quite so excellent. Many of the pieces taken singly are happy examples of Tennyson, though not perhaps the very happiest. As a whole, there is inevitably something ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... is needful to understand the quality in which superstition really consists. This distinguishing characteristic is obscured by the definitions of English dictionaries, which describe superstition as a disease, depending on an excess of religious sentiment, which disposes the person so affected to unreasonable ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... soils shall have been still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation. These questions do not relate only to the next century or the next generation. One distinguishing characteristic of really civilized men is foresight; we have to, as a nation, exercise foresight for this nation in the future, and if we do not exercise that foresight, dark ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the Indian group on the authority of Helfer, who stated it to be found in the southern parts of the Tenasserim province. Blyth mentions another distinguishing characteristic—it is not only larger than the other Gibbons, but it possesses an inflatable laryngeal sac. Its arms are immense—five feet across in an ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... confessed some childish peccadillo that was weighing on my small mind as the first result of my thoroughly aroused sense of guilt. In these early years of the Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost as far removed as the days of Bunyan. A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing characteristic of the child of the present day, and it may also be doubted whether such reprobates as Ned and his wife would to-day be affected much if at all by the "Pilgrim's Progress." There was probably great personal magnetism ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... had many stories of a parochial functionary whose eccentricities have, in a great measure, given way before the assimilating spirit of the times. I mean the old SCOTTISH BEADLE, or betheral, as he used to be called. Some classes of men are found to have that nameless but distinguishing characteristic of figure and aspect which marks out particular occupations and professions of mankind. This was so much the case in the betheral class, that an old lady, observing a well-known judge and advocate walking together in the street, remarked to a friend as they passed by, "Dear me, Lucy, wha ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... hunted for its valuable fur, and some years thousands of these beautiful skins are sent to market. The ears are very curious, having a tuft of bristling hair on the very point; indeed, this ear ornament is a distinguishing characteristic of all the varieties ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... military service, and again sent graduate and undergraduate into the fighting forces of our country. They are demonstrating again that they are the strongholds of ordered liberty and individual freedom. This has ever been the distinguishing characteristic of the American institution of learning. They have believed in democracy because they believed in the nobility of man; they have served society because they have looked upon the possession of learning not as conferring a privilege but as laying ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... pleasant things peculiar to, and so varying with, each state; and perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of the good man is his seeing the truth in every instance, he being, in fact, the rule and ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... are some people who cannot laugh, there are others who will not. It is not, however, that they are ashamed of being grown men, and want to go back to babyhood, for by some extraordinary perversity, they fancy unalterable gravity to be the distinguishing characteristic of wisdom. In a merry company, they present the appearance of a Red Indian whitewashed, and look on at the strange ways of their neighbours without betraying even the faintest spark of sympathy or intelligence. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... and possessed of the most piercing black eyes I ever saw in a woman's head. With no more education than other women of the middle classes of her day, she had an excellent mental capacity. Her most distinguishing characteristic, however, was rapidity of thought. If one ventured to suggest that she had not taken much time to arrive at any conclusion, she would say, "I cannot help it; things flash across me." That peculiarity has been passed on ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... by the wisest and most practical advice. The baron did not even think of attempting to do so. He had known Madame d'Argeles for years; he had seen so many proofs of her invincible energy and determination. She possessed the distinguishing characteristic of her family in a remarkable degree—that proverbial Chalusse obstinacy which Madame Vantrasson had alluded to in her ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau |
