Characteristic Quotes (page 8)
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Encounters taking the form of challenge-and-response are the most illuminating kind of events a for student of human affairs if he believes, as I believe, that one of the most distinctive characteristics of Man is the he is partially free to make choices.... Encounters are the occasions in human life on which freedom and creativity come into play and on which new things are brought into existence.
Arnold J. Toynbee
Is it necessary to add that the echoes of many characteristic tales, dating from that picturesque time, still linger about here, in more or less fragmentary form to be caught by the attentive ear? Some of them I have repeated; most of them I have forgotten; one I have never repeated, and assuredly can never forget.
Thomas Hardy
That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.
W. H. Auden
