Traits

Famous quotes containing the word traits:

    We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.
    William James (1842–1910)

    A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.
    Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)