Top 100 By Definition Quotes
#1. A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the 'utopia' we are living in is boring.
Lars Fr. H. Svendsen
#2. A white person was by definition somebody. Other people needed, across their hearts, one steel rib.
Gish Jen
#3. Narratives are the primary way in which we make sense of our lives, as opposed to, for example schema,cognition, beliefs, constructs. Definition of narrative include the important element of giving meaning to events and experiences over time by connecting them as a developing, continuing story.
Jacqui Stedmon
#4. There seems to be no way to save wildness from human intrusion without establishing and enforcing rules and regulations that are themselves intrusions on what, by definition, are meant to be areas outside humanity's control.
J. Meredith Neil
#6. The double jeopardy of being black and female in a racist and sexist society may well make one less afraid of the sanctions against success. A non-subservient black woman is by definition a transgressive- she is the ultimate outsider.
Mamphela Ramphele
#7. When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists.
Ron Paul
#8. With the advent of computing, human invention crossed a threshold into a world different from everything that came before. The computer is the universal machine almost by definition, machine-of-all-trades, capable of accomplishing or simulating just about any task that can be logically defined.
James Gleick
#9. Your definition of human is not the same as mine. To you, it means something ... negative. To me, it's a compliment - and by my definition - you are and he isn't
Stephenie Meyer
#10. Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.
Hannah Arendt
#11. By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Albert Camus
#12. A society in stable equilibrium is-by definition-one that has no history and wants no historians.
Henry Adams
#13. Fairness' is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties
busybodies
can prevent mutual accommodations by others.
Thomas Sowell
#14. Forty-five States, as the gentleman just said, have determined by people that were elected by the people of that State that marriage is the definition of one man and one woman.
Randy Neugebauer
#15. Revolutions are, by definition, unpredictable. A predictable revolution never erupts. Why
Yuval Noah Harari
#16. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
Chris Hedges
#17. The natural condition of the modern conservative movement is to always be in a state of revolution. Conservatives are, by definition, uncomfortable with power.
Craig Shirley
#18. A company has a monopoly on its own brand by definition, so creating a strong brand is a powerful way to claim a monopoly.
Peter Thiel
#19. A story-book hero had by definition no place in life; he battered his way through twenty victorious chapters, faded out on a lustful kiss, and was gone for good.
Mary Stewart
#20. By any sane definition of success, if you wake up in a pool of blood and nobody has shot you, you are not successful.
Arianna Huffington
#21. Answered his telephone himself if he happened to be at hand when it signalled because each call offered good odds that he would be justified in being gratifyingly rude to some stranger for daring to invade his privacy without cause - "cause" by Harshaw's definition, not by the stranger's.
Robert A. Heinlein
#22. I am free when I am functioning here in time and space as the creative will ... freedom by our definition is obedience to the law of one's nature.
Mary Parker Follett
#24. As long as male behavior is taken to be the norm, there can be no serious questioning of male traits and behavior. A norm is by definition a standard for judging; it is not itself subject to judgment.
Myriam Miedzian
#25. British rule meant not democracy -colonialism is almost by definition underdemocratic - but limited constitutional liberalism and capitalism
Fareed Zakaria
#26. Wise men don't need concrete answers. By definition, they need wisdom." ~ Geraki
Richelle Mead
#27. It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world.
Criss Jami
#28. ...the true value of an offering isn't measured by how much we give. It's measured by how much we keep...
By definition, a sacrifice must involve sacrifice...
Mark Batterson
#29. Politicians as a class are dangerous, that people who are seeking power over us are not, by definition, our friends.
James Bovard
#30. By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
James C. Collins
#31. The makers of dictionaries are dependent upon specialists for their definitions. A specialist's definition may be true or it may be erroneous. But its truth cannot be increased or its error diminished by its acceptance by the lexicographer. Each definition must stand on its own merits.
Benjamin Tucker
#32. For me, graffiti writers were always the fascinating eccentrics of hip-hop culture. What they do is secretive by definition, and not remunerative in any way.
Adam Mansbach
#33. All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism
Jon Krakauer
#34. Judicial activism, by definition, is a term applied to judges who render decisions with which you disagree.
James W. Mercer
#35. -That ain't right, Miss Maudie. You're the best lady I know.-
Miss Maudie grinned. thank you ma'am. Thing is, foot-washers think women are a sin by definition. They take the bible literally, you know.
Harper Lee
#36. I love my editor, but that would be the definition of hell to me to live with someone and have them go page by page through my manuscript. That I want to avoid at all costs.
Dean Koontz
#37. While an artist can choose whether or not to be responsive and responsible towards other human beings, by definition a designer must be.
Paola Antonelli
#38. The argument for the perfectibility of humankind rests on a logical fallacy. Thus: man is by definition imperfect, say those who would perfect him. But those who would perfect him are themselves, by their own definition, imperfect.
Margaret Atwood
#39. There are no good or bad habits. All habits are, by definition, bad.
Jose Bergamin
#40. There is no right or wrong apart from what you decide. Who you chose to defend deserves to be defended simply because you chose them. You are the Fire Lord. What you chose, by definition, is right.
Gene Luen Yang
#41. The thing I most love and hate about fashion is that it changes all the time. But I don't think I or anyone else can singlehandedly get rid of hooker style. Popular taste isn't great by definition. It's just popular.
Marc Jacobs
#42. Believing in an idea is dangerous! Because belief is absolute, and absolute, is unconditional, it is supreme, its ultimate and therefore fixed, which by definition will never be acceptable to change.
Joshua Fernandez
#43. The very idea of "managing" a forest in the first place is oxymoronic, because a forest is an ecosystem that is by definition self-managing.
Bernd Heinrich
#45. About my books, that's all that I think the public has, in its normal way, to know. My private life is, by definition, private.
Patrick O'Brian
#46. You start meditation as an average human being who is filled with vagueness and not much purpose or definition, who is controlled by their desires, your mind spins all over the place, your senses spin all over the place, out of control.
Frederick Lenz
#47. Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?
Richard Eberhart
#48. I suppose the word "unbearable" is a lie by definition. Unless you kill yourself immediately after using it.
Glen Duncan
#49. We must refuse to submit to those institutions which are by definition sexist - marriage, the nuclear family, religions built on the myth of feminine evil.
Andrea Dworkin
#50. The colonial period has been the proving ground in America for the new social history, which concentrates on the ordinary doings of ordinary people rather than on high culture and high politics. Unfortunately ordinary people, almost by definition, leave behind only faint traces of their existence.
Edmund Morgan
#51. I hate my picture being taken. A photograph by definition captures one mood. And I have a million facets to my personality; I never use just one. That's why I like TV more.
Jane Pauley
#52. Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.
Noam Chomsky
#53. I do know without fear of contradiction what the definition of life is and it is 12 words long. 'Life is defined by how much you improve the lives of others.'
Keith Olbermann
#54. The line between courageous faith and foolish idealism is, almost by definition, one angstrom wide.
Eric Metaxas
#55. I think that is the very definition of a family: a group of individuals, bound by the essence of love, who share a life together and yet maintain their unique individuality.
Kathy Magliato
#56. The following is, regrettably, a true story. Some of the names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the innocent. Though few of the people involved were innocent by any definition whatsoever.
English Teacher X
#57. Professional is an apt definition for me, professional slouch, that is. I can be very professional at seeming to do work, but the real work is trying to do as little as possible, without getting caught by Trip or any nosey busybodies.
J.C. Patrick
#58. No matter how you cut them, paste them, rotate them, or distort them, lip syncing and air-guitar playing are fundamentally foolish activities, and anyone seen to be engaging in them with anything approaching a straight face is, by definition, taking herself or himself much too seriously.
Walter Kirn
#60. The definition of the individual was: a multitude of one million divided by one million.
Arthur Koestler
#61. The definition of a lawman, Uncle, is easy," Wax said, feeling blood from a dozen cuts trickle down his face. He lifted Suit by the front of his clothing, bringing him close. "He's the man who takes the bullet so nobody else has to.
Brandon Sanderson
#62. Every sound is by definition a stop, which is how we can hear it.
Anne Lamott
#63. Schooling, by definition, must be conservative. It is naturally dependent on an older generation's level of knowledge and sense of values.
Leon Botstein
#64. In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can't name it, it means you don't recognize it.
Robert Fripp
#65. The definition of 'Employment' by an employer, and, that by an employee, are seldom the same.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#66. Faith is believing things by definition, which are not justified by reason. If it were justified by reason, it wouldn't be faith. It would just be ordinary belief. It's something you can't prove. That's what faith is, believing something you can't prove.
Colin McGinn
#67. Myths, by their definition, involve transformations, struggles through various worlds or layers of reality and of obscuration.
Anne Waldman
#68. No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.
Henry David Thoreau
#69. A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.
Melinda Gates
#70. If a situation requires swearing to God it is - by definition - extreme.
Pam Houston
#71. How can you possibly be happy if you think you're a person? Because we all know, just by definition, that people are definitely not happy because they take everything too seriously. They take themselves seriously.
Frederick Lenz
#72. To move into the mainstream, the ideational contender has to reframe the crisis by changing the very definition of reality.
Fred L. Block
#73. I never see problems. I always see challenges. By definition, a problem is something unwelcome or harmful, whereas a challenge is a contest. Contests can be won; and, I love winning.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
#74. A definition of faith: everything will be alright by God's standards, maybe not ours, but by His for sure.
Mark R. Woodward
#75. If you embrace 'positive thinking,' you are - by definition - spurning 'negative thinking.' So it's as if you were on a teeter-totter and are trying desperately to put all your weight on one side - the 'positive thinking' side.
Srikumar Rao
#76. [ ... ] nonstate conflicts kill far fewer people than conflicts that involve a government, perhaps a quarter as many. Again, this is not surprising, since goverments almost by definition are in the violence business.
Steven Pinker
#77. Since UFO stands for "unidentified flying object", the word ufology means approximately "knowledge about unknown flying objects", and is therefore a "science" whose content is void by definition. Similar considerations hold for parapsychology.
Lucio Russo
#78. Does something which exists on the edge have no true relevance to the stable center, or does it, by being on the edge, become a part of the edge and thus a part of the boundary, the definition which gives the whole its shape?
Lucy Grealy
#79. The next level, by definition, is something you can't see and you can't understand ...
Eben Pagan
#80. Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental.
Bill Hybels
#81. It was so silly to try to define things by words. What did one person mean by infatuation or obsession and another mean by love. The whole thing couldn't be tidied away with neat little labels. - Lena Gray
Maeve Binchy
#82. Innovating economies expand and develop. Economies that do not add new kinds of goods and services, but continue only to repeat old work, do not expand much nor do they, by definition, develop.
Jane Jacobs
#83. I laid it all out for him: Eliza believes in me, she moves me, and she's moved BY me. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me try harder, she makes me laugh, and she makes me feel like I can fly. Isn't that the goddamn definition of Love?
Tiffanie DeBartolo
#84. Yes, translation is by definition an inadequate substitute for being able to read a masterpiece in the original.
Terry Teachout
#85. Companies with significant revenue (more than $100 million) have, by definition, significant traction. They have proven out their thesis and can scale up or down as investment capital becomes available.
Jay Samit
#86. Love is large; love defies limits. People talk about the sanctity of love
love is by definition sacred. Not some love between some people, but all love between all people.
Jennifer Beals
#87. By definition, saving - for anything - requires us to not get things now so that we can get bigger ones later. That's hard. Our brains are hard wired to prefer the here and now.
Jean Chatzky
#88. Grace, by definition, is something that God is not required to grant. He owes a fallen world no mercy.
R.C. Sproul
#89. It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything or at least they are not science.
George Gaylord Simpson
#90. Here's my definition of a hero. A hero is an ordinary person given being and action by something bigger than themselves. One thing I'm sure about is I'm real ordinary. Yet I've had the chance to touch the lives of a lotta people.
Werner Erhard
#91. Though it is a team game by definition, it is actually a series of loosely connected individual efforts.
Bill Veeck
#92. Integrity, by its definition, means adhering consistently to a strong, reliable code of ethics, whatever that code is.
Scott K. Edinger
#93. By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and the profane beings.
Emile Durkheim
#94. How do you walk from one place to another? What makes you want to walk someplace? Any place that you want to get out of your car and walk is a good place by definition.
Jaquelin T. Robertson
#95. I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
Wole Soyinka
#96. At twenty-two, I had the callowest possible definition of interesting and, by the measure of my own calipers, was far from interesting myself.
Karen Joy Fowler
#97. For me, hardcore is simply unapologetic music, free of rules.
By that definition, we are a hardcore band.
Jacob Bannon
#98. Socialism is not a meritocracy. By definition it places increasingly confining restraints on those that succeed the most.
A.E. Samaan
#99. We act upon assumptions that control our view of reality, even though reality might be quite different ... By definition, what is unthinkable isn't part of our reality ... your assumptions about what is possible prevent you from accurately seeing the reality before you.
David Morrell
#100. A totally blind process can by definition lead to anything; it can even lead to vision itself.
Jacques Monod
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