Top 100 By Definition Quotes
#2. Reflection on the infinite seems to call, almost by definition, for infinite reflection.
Daniel Taylor
#3. Shedding the carapace we have been building so assiduously on the surface, we must by definition give up exactly what we thought was necessary to protect us from further harm.
David Whyte
#4. Generosity is, by definition, disinterested." (p.157)
Piero Ferrucci
#5. 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
#7. Though it is a team game by definition, it is actually a series of loosely connected individual efforts.
Bill Veeck
#10. I'd often thought being a Christian meant by definition being a bad one, since nothing is more difficult than Christianity, so I was more or less used to that feeling.
Charlaine Harris
#11. Teenagers ultimately don't mind belonging to a group, because there's always the opportunity to eventually become someone new. The elderly, by definition, are running out of opportunities for reinvention.
Charles Duhigg
#12. Grace, by definition, is something that God is not required to grant. He owes a fallen world no mercy.
R.C. Sproul
#14. Great genius you already have. The super conscious mind is invariably triggered by definition, and by decisiveness.
Brian Tracy
#15. 1 is not prime, by definition. 2 is an unnatural prime, 4 is an unnatural prime, and 6 is an unnatural prime. All other natural primes cannot be unnatural primes.
Aristotle.
#16. My characters have nothing. I'm working with impotence, ignorance ... that whole zone of being that has always been set aside by artists as something unusable - something by definition incompatible with art.
Samuel Beckett
#17. But who could teach daughters how to fly? Parents were by definition earthbound, grub eaters, feet in their own coffins, by dint of being parents.
Gregory Maguire
#18. 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
#19. I think human beings are almost, by definition, religious people,in the sense that we ask questions of meaning, we anticipate future events, we deal with the issues of mortality from the first time we see a dead bird as a little child.
John Shelby Spong
#20. 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
#21. 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
#22. We shouldn't get hung up on the questions we can't answer because life, by definition, is confusing. We're never going to have all the answers. Never. We should focus on the questions we can answer and make peace with the ones we can't.
Nicole Williams
#23. Telling our stories is what saves us. The story is enough ... The very act of storytelling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of narrative is, by definition, holy.
James Carroll
#24. Any conversation which does not include the context of the journey of the heart is by definition untrue to who we are as human beings.
Marianne Williamson
#25. The trouble with institutional investors is that their performance is usually measured relative to their peer group and not by an absolute yardstick. This makes them trend followers by definition.
George Soros
#26. It is simply not possible to live in a state of acute fear and shock for more than a couple of weeks, and so the mind finds a path, a story, a way onwards. Shock is by definition transient, even when the shocking thing is here to stay.
Sarah Moss
#28. Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshiping the same god.
Ridley Scott
#29. I take a very simple view that a violent extremist at some point previously been an extremist, and by definition is an extremist, so you do need to look at that non-violent extremism.
Theresa May
#30. These numbers gave Virginia's population about six times as large a proportion of gentlemen as England had. Gentlemen, by definition, had no manual skill, nor could they be expected to work at ordinary labor.
Edmund S. Morgan
#31. However a man who was honest and clever was always, ALWAYS more difficult to scam than someone who was both dishonest and clever.
Sincerity. It was so difficult , by definition, to fake.
Brandon Sanderson
#32. Opinion. Love meant being brave, otherwise you had already lost your own argument: the man who couldn't tell a woman he loved her was, by definition, not worthy of her.
Nick Hornby
#33. Yes, translation is by definition an inadequate substitute for being able to read a masterpiece in the original.
Terry Teachout
#34. If you ever get rich and famous, by definition you are special. You have done something special, and therefore you start to behave special. Then if the floor drops out, and you become down and out, you have a really new perspective.
Danny Bonaduce
#35. Proponents of same-sex marriage regularly label opponents 'radical' and 'extremist.' However, given that no society in thousands of years has allowed same-sex marriage, it is, by definition, the proponents of same-sex marriage whose position is radical and extreme.
Dennis Prager
#36. Any relationships that would reject you for being true to yourself are - by definition - abusive relationships. You'll be much better off when you let them go.
Steve Pavlina
#37. Innovation- any new idea-by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.
Warren G. Bennis
#38. 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
#39. Of all human activities, apart from the procreation of children, gardening is the most optimistic and hopeful. The gardener is by definition one who plans for and believes and trusts in a future, whether in the short or the longer term.
Susan Hill
#40. One doesn't bother to believe the credible: the credible is believed already, by definition. There's no adventure of the mind.
Northrop Frye
#41. Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.
Robert Morgan
#42. By definition, intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden. What the enemies of the United States hope to deny we work to reveal.
George Tenet
#43. Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Gore Vidal
#44. By definition, a 'Sisterchick' is a 'friend who shares the deepest wonders of your heart, loves you like a sister, and gives you a reality check when you're being a brat.
Robin Jones Gunn
#45. Realize that ultimate success comes from opportunistic,bold moves which by definition, cannot be planned.
F. Ross Johnson
#46. It's very difficult to be different from the rest of the crowd the majority of the time, which by definition is what you're doing if you're a successful trader.
Bill Lipschutz
#47. It is odd, when you think about it, that we accuse racists of "discrimination." This is the very thing of which they are by definition incapable: They think all members of certain groups are the same.
Christopher Hitchens
#48. Great leadership is by definition relentlessly developmental.
Bill Hybels
#49. The Mysterious Pass, which opens beyond space and time, is inconceivable by means of discursive thought and has, by definition, no fixed position.
Monica Esposito
#50. When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abusive cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care.
Bell Hooks
#51. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists.
Walter Cronkite
#52. But if we've honestly done everything we can, by definition we can't do anything more.
Craig Groeschel
#53. Innovation is applied creativity. By definition, innovation is always about introducing something new, or improved, or both and it is usually assumed to be a positive thing.
Ken Robinson
#54. By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
David Whyte
#55. 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
#56. Taking responsibility for oneself is by definition an act of kindness.
Sharon Salzberg
#57. By definition, love made you better than good enough; it redefined perfection to include your traits, instead of excluding them.
Jodi Picoult
#58. A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.
Melinda Gates
#59. Think outside the square. Think for yourself don't just follow the herd. Think multidisciplinary! Problems by definition, cross many academic disciplines.
Lucas Remmerswaal
#60. Scientific answers are not definitive: they are, almost by definition, the best ones that we have at any given time. Consider
Carlo Rovelli
#61. Ever since Obama's election team and media thugs made me famous for asking a simple question in 2008, I've had more than my share of death threats by people who are by definition at least a little crazy.
Joe Wurzelbacher
#62. digging for the truth, by definition, unearths things - and some things were safer left buried.
Christine M. Whitehead
#64. If a situation requires swearing to God it is - by definition - extreme.
Pam Houston
#65. Truth by definition is exclusive. If truth were all-inclusive, nothing would be false.
Walter Martin
#66. 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
#67. The enterprise, by definition, must be capable of producing more or better than all the resources that comprise it.
Peter Drucker
#68. If faith were rational , it wouldn't be -by definition- faith.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#69. I'm a man who falls in love so easily, and with such reckless lack of consideration for the consequences of my actions, that from the very first instant of entering into a marriage I become, almost by definition, an adulterer.
Michael Chabon
#70. To be counter to the culture, you are by definition willfully and actively ignoring the culture, i.e., reality.
Rob Lowe
#71. Every good historian is almost by definition a revisionist. He looks at the accepted view of a particular historic episode or period with a very critical eye.
Paul Johnson
#72. In contrast to modern art, which causes displeasure-modern art, by definition, hurts. In this precise sense, modern art is sublime: it causes pleasure-in-pain, it produces its effect through its own failure, insofar as it refers to the impossible Things.
Slavoj Zizek
#73. But doubt is a crucial to faith as darkness is to light. Without one, the other has no context and is meaningless. Faith is, by definition, uncertainty. It is full of doubt, steeped in risk. It is about matters not of the known, but of the unknown.
Carter Heyward
#74. 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
#75. Mediocrist (n.) A person of mediocre talents. Nobody wants to be mediocre, but someone has to be. In fact, by definition, most people are. Microphily
Ammon Shea
#76. By definition a sequel can't be original. So you've got to figure out what worked the first time around.
Barry Sonnenfeld
#77. I always say that in my career as an actress, I've always worked with people like David Lynch or Guy Maddin or Peter Weir who are considered not mainstream directors and that could be because they are like my dad. They are pioneers, and pioneers, by definition, invent something new.
Isabella Rossellini
#78. Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.
Peter F. Drucker
#79. 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
#80. Veal, by definition, is the product of a sick, anemic, deliberately malnourished calf, a newborn dragged away from his mother in the first hours of life. Veal calves are dealt the harshest of punishments for the least essential of meats.
Matthew Scully
#81. The next level, by definition, is something you can't see and you can't understand ...
Eben Pagan
#82. How can a radical scepticism about the state be squared with a religious dedication to the notion that market outcomes are, by definition, optimal?
Yanis Varoufakis
#83. Speculative fiction by definition is geared toward an audience that wants strangeness, an audience that wants to spend time in worlds that absolutely are not like the observable world around them.
Orson Scott Card
#84. People worry about Twitter. Twitter is banal. It's 140-character messages. By definition, you can hardly say anything profound. On the other hand, we communicate. And, sometimes, we communicate about things that are important.
James Gleick
#85. The exceptionally profound is always, by definition, basic and mundane.
K.J. Parker
#86. By definition he [the writer] cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it
Albert Camus
#87. Human rights are not a privilege granted by the few, they are a liberty entitled to all, and human rights, by definition, include the rights of all humans, those in the dawn of life, the dusk of life, or the shadows of life.
Kay Granger
#88. The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can't beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That's just the way it is.
Charlie Munger
#89. Since Americans are by nature individualistic and entrepreneurial, by definition, then, the socialist program is anti-American, to say nothing of totalitarian. Socialism is an old dream. Some dreams are nightmares when put into practice.
Ben Carson
#90. I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class ... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.
Nick McDonell
#91. If there is one thing I learned by reading Epstein's "The Sports Gene" it is that world-class athletes are, by definition, abnormal: that is, the kind of person capable of competing at that level is necessarily very different from the rest of us physiologically. They are outliers.
Malcolm Gladwell
#92. A catalyst by definition creates a reaction, but itself remains unchanged. Be a positive catalyst for a cause you are passionate about. I dare you to remain unchanged!
Michele Jennae
#93. Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it - they should, because they put it all in beforehand.
Saul Bellow
#94. Well you can't believe everything you read. After all, by definition, fiction writers lie for a living.
Janette Rallison
#95. Think different in order to change the rules. By definition, if you don't change the rules you aren't a revolutionary, and if you don't think different, you won't change the rules.
Guy Kawasaki
#96. Superior quality is a prerequisite to entering the game. By definition, an entrepreneur is undercapitalized relative to the status quo. Therefore, if you enter a product that is either at parity with the leaders, or not as good, you won't even get to the starting line.
Gary Hirshberg
#97. Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.
Maureen Johnson
#98. By definition, gay is smart. I see plenty of macho heterosexual idiots, but nine times out of 10 you can have a great conversation if you find a gay guy.
Jason Bateman
#99. Every championship, by definition, is historic.
George Vecsey
#100. By definition, fifty percent of every large group that let's anyone join is below average.
Jack J. Lee
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