consist in

consist in (third-person singular simple present consists in, present participle consisting in, simple past and past participle consisted in)

1. To have the thing mentioned as the only or most important part.

   Tolerance consists in respecting other people’s opinions.

   • 1818, Mary Shelley, Frankenstein:

     When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses, — in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart.

   • 1953, Jean Piaget, Origin of Intelligence in the Child, published 2013:

     It is that contact between the mind and things does not consist, at any level, in perceptions of simple data or in associations of such unities, but always consists in apprehensions of more or less “structured” complexes.

• consist of