I am positive that flexibility is a feminine characteristic.
I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.
That typically English characteristic for which there is no English name -esprit de corps.
As free human beings we can use our unique intelligence to try to understand ourselves and our world. But if we are prevented from using our creative potential, we are deprived of one of the basic characteristics of a human being.
the crucial disadvantage of aggression, competitiveness and skepticism as national characteristics is that these qualities cannot be turned off at five o'clock.
Any characteristic that you can't stand in another person is an aspect of you that you can't stand in yourself. Once you discover that this characteristic is also in you, your resistance towards the other person gets replaced with compassion.
Van Gogh, among others, believed in the religion of art, which, whatever else it involved, made it clear that art is more than the sum of its material characteristics and not simply a reflection of everyday life.
There is not a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.
Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos.