Quotes About Defining Life

#1. We have laid the foundation for a better life. Things that were unimaginable a few years ago have become everyday reality. I belong to the generation of leaders for whom the achievement of democracy was the defining challenge.

Nelson Mandela

#2. Becoming a mother was the single defining event of my life. It felt like the whole world shifted.

Debra Messing

#3. We all have life-defining moments. They are like open-book tests, but we don't know we have been examined until it is over.

John Bevere

#4. He is the cornerstone of a defining life moment for me.

Kitty Thomas

#5. Philosophically I am, or at least have been, a follower of Sartre. I am very interested in the choices we make, or don't make, in life-defining matters. That moment of 'angst' and its consequences can be such a cruel thing.

Per Petterson

#6. That's how you're defining right and wrong? By what makes me happy?"
Pride lit his face as he nodded.
Oh Jesus. "Walker, you can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I shouldn't be the center of your life!"
His voice was gentle, a little confused. "But you are.

Rowan McBride

#7. We are condemned to be free people, liberated people who must make life-defining decisions. Freedom requires choices and all choices entail value decisions.

Kilroy J. Oldster

#8. Time heals many wounds but this loss becomes the defining sadness of your life.

Claire Cook

#9. Johns Hopkins introduced me to two defining events in my life: commitment to biomedical research and meeting my future wife, Mary.

Peter Agre

#10. The defining lines of reality have always been a bit blurred for me.

Christy Hall

#11. But the pathos and the gift of life is that we cannot know which will be our defining heartbreak, or our most victorious joy.

Alexandra Fuller

#12. Grace is the catalyst that turns guilt into gratitude. One act of grace can turn the worst moment into the defining moment of someone's life. You can be that agent of grace.

Mark Batterson

#13. The word, and the concept of feminism, was a gift because it gave me a sense of identity and a way of defining how I wished to live my life.

Betty Buckley

#14. Children and scientists share an outlook on life. 'If I do this, what will happen?' is both the motto of the child at play and the defining refrain of the physical scientist.

James Gleick

#15. Burning passion, definite purpose and joyful persistence are the defining force for true success.

Debasish Mridha

#16. what we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore - plays in defining the quality of our life.

Cal Newport

#17. We all have to escape from this thing called life sometimes. Maybe we use substances to do it. Maybe we use religion. Maybe we use exercise. Maybe we use anger. But we all have to do it. *How* we do it is what defines us.

Dan Pearce

#18. I don't know if it was a defining moment. I knew it as soon as I could comprehend the possibility of having a career. I knew very young I wanted to be a movie star. As much as I grew into love of the craft. As soon as I could speak I was auditioning and going to classes every day. It was my life.

Columbus Short

#19. You've gotta believe that the split second that changed your life - the brief moment that took your leg and bruised your melon - can't be the defining moment of your life. It was just an instant, a flash. Just one second out of millions of seconds. It doesn't get to own you.

Jennifer Handford

#20. I want to find that defining moment that you're satisfied and you've done what you want to do in your life.

Tyson Gay

#21. Hold'em - like life itself - has its defining moment. It's the flop. When you see the flop, you're looking at 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting.

Lou Krieger

#22. Occasions for defining moments do not arise every day. When they do, we must seize the opportunities they present for improving everyone's life.

Richard Pound

#23. For all the idealism that propels him through the story, if you read between the lines you may see that at a moment which he considers a defining point in his life as an activist, he's also set the stage for potential ugliness down the road.

James Vance

#24. Your defining voice, your generosity, your grace, and when you allow His Spirit to live freely in you, then, and only then, will you have the energy and wisdom to live the Christian life well. It is His work, and He will kindly carry your load.

Sally Clarkson

#25. Defining moment in new telepathist's life, moment when intuitive individual learns most of society isn't telepathic, doesn't see auras,doesn't know what life on ethereal astral plane is like.

Christina Westover

#26. You would not be here TODAY if YESTERDAY was your defining moment. LIVE THIS DAY and move towards your dreams.

Steve Maraboli

#27. For communication to be effective, especially in matters as life-defining as the gospel message, truth and relevance are the two indispensable wings on which it is borne.

Ravi Zacharias

#28. What no one tells twentysomethings like Emma is that finally, and suddenly, they can pick their own families - they can create their own families - and these are the families that life will be about. These are the families that will define the decades ahead.

Meg Jay

#29. Malone's commentary on Sonnet 93 was a defining moment in the history not only of Shakespeare studies but also of literary biography in general. What has emerged in our time as a dominant form of life writing can trace its lineage back to this extended footnote.

James Shapiro

#30. As you open to love, you can begin the process of defining your intentions for your dating life.

Amy Leigh Mercree

#31. All of us need a vision for our lives, and even as we work to achieve that vision, we must surrender to the power that is greater than we know. It's one of the defining principles of my life that I love to share: God can dream a bigger dream for you than you could ever dream for yourself.

Oprah Winfrey

#32. All religions are not the same. All religions do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not and accordingly, of defining life's purpose.

Ravi Zacharias

#33. I think of these desert years of mine, not of my choosing. Maybe if it were all smooth and comfortable, if my pride and professionalism were defining life for me, God's steel-quiet, penetrating word would have been lost in the babble and sheen of success.

Luci Shaw

#34. We're defining the competitive landscape ... of who can provide the most supportive services that make life easier, keep track of things, that complement human memory in a way that helps us get things done,

Eric Horvitz

#35. Personalising success means defining it in line with your defined mission and beliefs. This will help ignite a passion for the dream as well as develop underlying values and attitudes.

Archibald Marwizi

#36. It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound inside books. It was never just a story.

Ransom Riggs

#37. Magical moments,defining incidents,people who have made a difference to us....some of these change the course of life.I enjoy reliving these off and on to remind myself to look out for empowering moments,magical happenings and people who influence meaningfully.Try it,it is heartening and powerful

Abha Maryada Banerjee

#38. There is often a defining experience that marks any significant change in the course of a person's life.

John Irving

#39. In your life's defining moments there are two choices - you either step forward in faith and power or you step backward into fear.

James Arthur Ray

#40. Decisions are a way of defining ourselves. There comes a time in life when there is nothing else to do but go your own way. Where you are headed there are no trails, no paths, just your own instincts.

Sergio Bambaren

#41. Nostalgia washes over me with tons of memors and lifetime rolled on this land. Every oblivious memory from the childhood wraps open in the fragrance of these busy roads and familiar land, long signals, irritating traffic,honking cars,rushing people,excessive pollution defining Delhi at its best.

Parul Wadhwa

#42. It becomes one of those defining moments in your life, when your mother does that

Melina Marchetta

#43. You only need to look at Jane Austen to see how crossed wires can become a defining aspect of romantic life. Then again, if the course of true love ran more smoothly, it would have a terribly detrimental effect on our cache of love stories.

Mariella Frostrup

#44. The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.

Abraham Maslow

#45. Our defining gift as humans is our power to choose, including our power to choose our collective future. It is a gift that comes with a corresponding moral responsibility to use that power in ways that work to the benefit of all people and the whole of life.

David Korten

#46. The most critical, defining battles we wage in life, we wage alone. Against ourselves. It

Karen Marie Moning

#47. Being a twin, and being my sister's twin, is such a defining part of my life that I wouldn't know how to be who I am, including a writer, without that being somehow at the centre.

Taiye Selasi

#48. The major purpose of defining and understanding yourself is to be able to come up with an objective strategy to map your success.

Archibald Marwizi

#49. I'm unpredictable, I never know where I'm going until I get there, I'm so random, I'm always growing, learning, changing, I'm never the same person twice. But one thing you can be sure of about me; is I will always do exactly what I want to do.

C. JoyBell C.

#50. We now operate in a world in which we can assume neither competence nor good faith from the authorities, and the consequences of this simple, devastating realization is the defining feature of American life at the end of this low, dishonest decade.

Christopher L. Hayes

#51. It was Sister Hildegarde's belief that good penmanship was the defining key to success in life.

Louise Erdrich

#52. Through each crisis in my life, with acceptance and hope, in a single defining moment, I finally gained the courage to do things differently.

Sharon E. Rainey

#53. We talk about defining moments, but I think nothing can define you. They're all refining moments. You're constantly refining yourself and refining your life.

Sheryl Crow

#54. Every hour you are not going after your passion, making your dreams a reality or defining your purpose is an hour you can't get back. Is what you're doing right now, this day, this moment getting you closer to where you want to be? If not, readjust your focus. It's your future. Go get it!

Elizabeth Bourgeret

#55. Lives are made of strings of moments, and every once in a while, one of those moments is pivotal and defining. It changes everything, alters you so completely that when you look back, there's a clear before and after

Elizabeth Norris

#56. Neoliberalism is the defining political economic paradigm of our time - it refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private interests are permitted to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize their personal profit.

Noam Chomsky

#57. The absolute defining moment of my life was the day the drug deal went bad. It started out just like any other day, at least for the girlfriend of a dealer. However, this time, it went bad. Really bad.

Valerie Fries Wade

#58. Once in a while, life gives you a chance to measure your worth. Sometimes you're called upon to make a split-second decision to do the right thing, defining which way your life will go. These are the decisions that make you who you are.

Perry Moore

#59. But birthdays are random ... Defining one's life by the day one was cut from an umbilical cord is completely arbitrary.

Neal Shusterman

#60. The one thing I have learned is that you can't think your way through life. The only way to figure out what to do is to do - something.

Meg Jay

#61. Every single act of love, hate, or lapse of judgment may be the defining moment in a person's life.

Shelley K. Wall

#62. Perhaps defining a self begins with simply making the first choice, simply rising up and deciding what you desire, and then methodically, like writing, putting one word after the other until you have created a whole self and a whole life in the process.

Michele Rosenthal

#63. Futility is the defining characteristic of life.

Stephen R. Donaldson

#64. Perhaps the most defining characteristic of a superhero is a willingness to sacrifice for the good of others, even to the point of laying down his or her own life.

Rachel Hawkins

#65. I think the difference between being miserable and finding happiness is just a matter of perspective. If you live your life defining yourself by what other people think of you, it's a form of self-torture.

Sarah Silverman

#66. The unceasing flow of thought in all its various forms is an inescapable and defining aspect of the human condition.

Paul O'Brien

#67. He'd meant to pray, meant to fix his thoughts on something beautiful, like the future and the new world and the woman he would be sharing it with.
But like every important, defining moment in his life, it had all roared by too fast.

Blake Crouch

#68. 'Step Brothers' itself, when I did it, I don't know if I had any idea that it would become a defining moment in my career and life like it has, and I'm really happy that that's the one that ended up being that for me.

Adam Scott

#69. Yesterday was not your defining moment. The calendar moved forward; why not you?

Steve Maraboli

#70. Somebody asked me a question. It was a defining question: 'What type of legacy do you want to leave?' We ask that question a lot later in life, but we need to start asking it to young people.

Marc Kielburger

#71. Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.

Ivan Turgenev

#72. You are doing something very sacred here, something very daring, during your life upon the earth. You are defining yourself, and then creating yourself anew, in each golden moment of now.

Neale Donald Walsch

#73. You are only one defining decision away from a totally different life!

Mark Batterson

#74. I believe that love between people is the greatest life-giving force in the world. It's intensely frustrating and inevitably makes a fool of you, but you can't stop going back to it, and it's pretty much the defining experience of a human being.

Sebastian Faulks

#75. Today, we have many ways of defining success in life. Some define it as being a sports hero, others as being wealthy, others as being popular and well liked, and still others as being happy. How does God define success? He defines it as being spiritually mature!

Dr. Todd M. Fink

#76. No one gets an easy pass in life. We all meet struggles while pursuing our dreams. Sometimes our knees shake when facing giants, and sometimes our feet get knocked out from under us. Those are defining moments.

Jake Byrne

#77. Doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better

Meg Jay

#78. Until you make a destiny defining decision, you can't move from where you are to the rightful place you should be.

Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

#79. Sundance is going to be a defining moment in my life. But the unfortunate thing about Sundance is, when you have a film there, you can't have the opportunity to see other films.

Gavin O'Connor

#80. I want to live the next chapter in my life without my lips as my defining characteristic.

Lisa Rinna

#81. I always thought that I would spend the first half of my life making money so I can spend the second half of my life giving it all away. And one of the defining moments of my life was when I realized that I could do both at the same time with TOMS.

Blake Mycoskie

#82. There are defining moments in one's life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.

Jeffrey Archer

#83. We cannot suppress our defining humanity and innate spirituality. The quivering pulsation of life force buried within the scarlet corpus of our blood waits like a winged angel adamant to erupt from a cocoon of unholy encapsulation whenever we return to ligature of our primitive essence.

Kilroy J. Oldster

#84. Force of Life

Defining the intention
of our heart's desire
we discover
the Force of Life

Natasa Nuit Pantovic

#85. But in life we don't usually get to choose the time of our defining moments. We just have to stand and face them when they come, no matter what sort of a state we're in.

Darren Shan

#86. Goodness can endure a few moments; holiness is life-defining.

Ravi Zacharias

#87. Comparing objects like cars, houses, clothes, and defining life according to those comparisons, instead of trying to discover the real reason for being alive.

Paulo Coelho

#88. Pearl Harbor was the defining event in my life. It shaped who I am, and all of my hang-ups and my drives, I think, stem from that.

David Suzuki

#89. Theologians pitted devotion and morality against belief, defining faith no longer as a way of life but rather as intellectual assent to certain creeds or confessions; their books were filled with "quarrelling, disputing, scolding, and reviling."38

Diana Butler Bass