Human Trait Quotes

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.

The greatest form of expression - or, at least, the most common that we have as human beings, what separates us from the animals - is speaking: the ability to communicate.

The habit of collecting, of attachment to things, is an essential human trait. But Western civilization put collecting on a pedestal by inventing museums. Museums are about representing power. It could be the king's power or, later, people's power.

Imagination is not the exclusive appanage of artists, but belongs in varying degrees to all men.

I've been fascinated by mysteries for as long as I can remember. Real, fictional, solved, unsolved, I don't care; they all fascinate me. I think that's a core human trait.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind.

I am, as are most writers, just hugely obsessive, and so are many of my closest friends, who tend to be writers or scientists. It's a trait of human nature that I'm particularly in touch with. So I tend to project it onto my characters.

Creativity is not simply a property of exceptional people but an exceptional property of all people.

I can teach a chimp how to make linguini and clams. I can't teach a chimp to dream about it and think about how great it is.

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.

I have a mantra that people are naturally, fundamentally and inherently mobile.

Speech is reason's brother, and a kingly prerogative of man.

I believe that everyone collects. I think collecting is in our blood as humans.

What you discover when you look at creativity from the perspective of the brain is that it is universal. We're all creative all of the time, we can't help but be creative.

The power of understanding symbols, i.e. of regarding everything about a sense-datum as irrelevant except a certain form that it embodies, is the most characteristic mental trait of mankind. It issues in an unconscious, spontaneous process of abstraction, which goes on all the time in the human mind: a process of recognizing the concept in any configuration given to experience, and forming a conception accordingly. That is the real sense of Aristotle's definition of Man as "the rational animal".

If there is any characteristic that is distinctly human, it is the capability for reflective self-consciousness.

No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.

Capacity for love in its higher forms seems to be peculiarly human although even in humans it is still peculiar.

People are innately curious.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

The drive to be a parent is strong. It's one of the most ingrained human traits there is.

The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.

Wit and wisdom are born with a man.

The concept that a person who has a lot holds his hand out to someone who has less, or someone who isn't hurting holds his hand out to someone who is, is simply a human trait that has nothing to do with celebrity. I am confounded at the stinginess of some institutions and some people. I'm bewildered by it. You can only put away so much stuff in your closet.