Quotes About Definitions

#1. My favorite definition of success is that it is a state of mind combined with a state of readiness. You can have one and be a flop; if you have both, you'll win every time.

Carolyn Warner

#2. I wanted to talk," he said.
"I don't want to talk," said Jared. "And I won't want to talk. Ever."
"Can we just - "
"Talk?" Jared asked. "All right, if you insist. Let's talk about the many definitions of the word no.

Sarah Rees Brennan

#3. Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.

Abby Sunderland

#4. What you do with your life is ascribing more to what you invest your time in. If you spend a lot of time on your phone, you're ascribing more worship to that. Anything can become, by that definition, some form of idol or deity or ultimate worth in your life.

Jon Foreman

#5. In our definitions, we grope after the spiritual by describing it as invisible. The true meaning of spiritual is real; that law which executes itself, which works without means, and which cannot be conceived as not existing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#6. To describe the animate life of particular things is simply the most precise and parsimonious way to articulate the things as we spontaneously experience them, prior to all our conceptualizations and definitions.

David Abram

#7. To totalitarianism, an opponent is by definition subversive; democracy treats subversives as mere opponents for fear of betraying its principles.

Jean Francois Revel

#8. Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.

Richard Whately

#9. Artists, by definition innocent, don't steal. But they do borrow without giving back.

Ned Rorem

#10. Embryonic cells, by their very definition, are not from your body. Right now, inside your body, you have everything necessary to build what you need now.

Robert Clark

#11. Really, a nightmare just really has to evoke some sort of, we call it, dysphoric emotion or something uncomfortable. You could be sad, you could be unhappy; you could be scared, anxious. But traditionally, the definition is you have to awaken from this nightmare.

Shelby Harris

#12. When confronted with a clear definition of what it is to be Mexican, we encounter ourselves in a never ending allegory of mixes and chaos.

Gael Garcia Bernal

#13. If you want to be important-wonderful. If you want to be recognized-wonderful. If you want to be great-wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#14. If someone would have asked him to describe that moment, he would have failed miserably. The only thing he knew was this is how it felt to love and be loved in return. Till now love as a feeling was alien to him but tonight he had witnessed its definitions in the most profound manner ever possible.

Namrata

#15. I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than that.

Mark Knopfler

#16. All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought.

Paolo Bacigalupi

#17. The present time of believers is no longer determined by the past. It takes its definition from the future.

Jurgen Moltmann

#18. HASH: There is no definition for this word - nobody knows what hash is.

Ambrose Bierce

#19. I suppose, I said, it is one definition of love, the belief in something that only the two of you can see.

Rachel Cusk

#20. By definition, revolutions are not linear, one step at a time, event A leading to event B, and so on. Many causes operate on each other at once. Revolutions shift into place suddenly, like the pattern in a kaleidoscope. They do not so much proceed as crystallize.

Marilyn Ferguson

#21. These pages are not my confession; they're my definition. And I feel, as I begin to write it, that I can write it with some semblance of truth.

Fernando Pessoa

#22. Drama is what you do when you have a dream while you're awake.

Ron Smothermon

#23. The definition of woman's work is shitwork.

Gloria Steinem

#24. Every artist feels alone and isolated, Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you what you are and what they are aside from the intellectual aspects.

Jasper Johns

#25. Each generation of rabbis is necessarily less perfect than the rabbis that came before, since each generation is more removed from the perfection of the Garden. Therefore, no rabbi is allowed to overturn any of his forebears' wisdom, since they are all, by definition, smarter than him.

Cory Doctorow

#26. IT'S a pitfall to have a definition of photography,

Jeff Wall

#27. Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion.

Richard Dawkins

#28. Frankly, [the definition of woman] is a problem that the lesbians do not have because of a change of perspective. 'Woman' has meaning only in heterosexual systems of thought and heterosexual, economic systems. Lesbians are not women.

Monique Wittig

#29. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status.

Octavia Butler

#30. The definition of the word nerd has changed. It's now any attractive person with a hobby. The loneliness component is no longer included.

Gary Gulman

#31. When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists.

Ron Paul

#32. One of the main reasons for the existence of philosophy is not that it enables you to find truth (it can never do that) but that it does provide you a refuge for definitions.

T. E. Hulme

#33. I think that the definition of autism is too broad. You got to remember, autism definition is a behavioral profiling.

Temple Grandin

#34. I can't stand theory because it is imposed by the intellectual. And the intellectual is, by definition, not a creative person. The intellectual is a person who talks about the creative process, but often doesn't understand it.

Mary Pratt

#35. Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

Anthony Marra

#36. The twenty first century will require a re-affirmation and re-definition of our alliances and international organisations.

Chuck Hagel

#37. Definition of good neighbor: someone to be trusted; a courteous, friendly source of help when help is needed; someone you can count on; someone who cares.

Edward B. Rust Jr.

#38. People from different cultures have different definitions for beauty. Isn't that sad to judge others with our standards ... rather than appreciate them?

Mizuki Nomura

#39. Wit is educated insolence.

Aristotle.

#40. Progress, whatever your definition of it, is not inevitable.

Barbra Streisand

#41. The new definition of a heathen is a man who has never played baseball.

Elbert Hubbard

#42. A society in stable equilibrium is-by definition-one that has no history and wants no historians.

Henry Adams

#43. In case you're short on definitions, here's one. Insanity: 'Destroying the very things that sustain us.' And if we're so short-sighted so as to make such preposterous choices, then it's not all that preposterous to believe that shortly our end will be in sight.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#44. If you look at most definitions, a god is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. In particular, god knows when you are doing something that you shouldn't be doing and whether you are playing according to god's rules.

Julian Assange

#45. I suddenly woke up to the fact that if I accepted anybody's definition of what there was in the world, I would be limited.

Shirley Brice Heath

#46. I realize that definitions spark controversy and disagreement, but I'm okay with that. I'd rather we debate the meaning of words that are important to us than not discuss them at all.

Brene Brown

#47. There is no rigorous definition of rigor.

Morris Kline

#48. Recite to yourself some of the traditional attributes of the word 'spiritual': mythic, magical, ethereal, incorporeal, intangible, nonmaterial, disembodied, ideal, platonic. Is that not a definition of the electronic-digital?

Timothy Leary

#49. I submit that the traditional definition of psychiatry, which is still vogue, places it alongside such things as alchemy and astrology, and commits it to the category of pseudo-science.

Thomas Szasz

#50. Since the photographic medium has been digitized, a fixed definition of the term photography has become impossible.

Andreas Gursky

#51. When alone I am not aware of my race or my sex, both in need of social contexts for definition.

Maxine Hong Kingston

#52. I have a personal definition of cartooning, which is, simply, "imaginative drawing." Anything you're drawing that is not in front of you but is a mental construct that you want to express in a drawing is, to me, a cartoon.

Jim Woodring

#53. To succeed as a contrarian you must recognize what the crowd believes, have concrete justification for why the majority is wrong, and have the patience and conviction to stick with what is, by definition, an unpopular bet.

Whitney Tilson

#54. I think all religions can agree on certain definitions of God and concepts of God, like God being the god of love, the great 'I am' energy.

Vera Farmiga

#55. The errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds; and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.

Thomas Hobbes

#56. Multicultural is not a description of a category of American writing-it is a definition of all American writing.

Ishmael Reed

#57. The name of happiness is but a wider termfor the unalloy'd conditions of the Pleasur of Life,attendant on all function, and not to be deny'dto th' soul, unless forsooth in our thought of naturespiritual is by definition unnatural.

Robert Bridges

#58. The definition of success is getting many of the things money can buy and all the things money can't buy.

Zig Ziglar

#59. Honest change? Honest? Has someone altered the definition of the word while my back was turned, or have you recently developed a sense of humor?

Ellen Kushner

#60. Human nature is, by definition, a talkative one, imprudent, indiscreet, gossipy, incapable of closing its mouth and keeping it closed.

Jose Saramago

#61. Man is by definition the first and primary weed under whose influence all other weeds have evolved.

Jack Harlan

#62. Beliefs and definitions never clarify how Reality works -- they only distort perception of it.

Thomas Daniel Nehrer

#63. Great performers are, by definition, abnormal; they strive throughout their entire careers to separate themselves from the pack.

John Eliot

#64. The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.

Charles Sanders Peirce

#65. Home is the definition of God.

Emily Dickinson

#66. Sense of Wonder ( ... ) may be defined as a shift in perspective so that the reader, having been made suddenly aware of the true scale of an event or venue, responds to the revelation with awe.

John Clute

#67. The two sides of the equation are the same. We have a tautology. The definition is meaningless.

Norman Macbeth

#68. Audiences looking for a rich, textured, cinematic experience will be put off and disconcerted by an image that looks more like an advanced version of high definition television than a traditional movie.

Kenneth Turan

#69. My definition of evil is unfriendliness

Muhammad Ali

#70. Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Poverty: The result of marriage.

Idries Shah

#71. If you live through defeat, you are not defeated. If you are beaten but acquire wisdom, you have won. Lose yourself to improve yourself. Only when we shed all self-definition do we find who we really are.

RZA

#72. Deferring gratification is a good definition of being civilized.

Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

#73. I realize that, to many readers, Hard Fantasy may seem to be a contradiction in terms. Fantasy, according to most generally recognized definitions, differs from both 'real world' fiction and 'science fiction' in that magic or magical creatures are active elements.

Jane Lindskold

#74. There is a straight-forward definition for 'Independent Filmmaking'. The term references a group of films that are financed by money that comes from outside the studio system. In a literal sense that is what it means.

Andrew Neel

#75. I never call myself modern or traditional, in our out, new or used, because I prefer not to be hemmed in by rigid definitions.

Kenny Werner

#76. I am girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white.
Remember this.

Cecelia Ahern

#77. With bisexuality, there's so much out there in terms of what that means and there are so many definitions, and it's about finding out what's right for you.

Evan Rachel Wood

#78. The Silvertop and the Goldtop both had subtlety where it was needed but lots of definition as well. I liked the different voicings of the distortion/fuzz elements.

Dweezil Zappa

#79. Take any segment of population, impose strict yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment.

Steven Erikson

#80. But he fails to realize that, by declining the opportunity to define himself, he allows others, less interested, more callous, meaner others, to create definitions for him.

Stephen Dau

#81. We want to do something and a definition is a means of doing it. If we want certain results then we must use certain meanings or definitions. But no definition has any authority apart from a purpose, or to bar us from other purposes.

I. A. Richards

#82. The definition of prayer is paying careful and concentrated attention to something other than your own constructions.

W. H. Auden

#83. The western mind makes definitions; it draws lines.

Camille Paglia

#84. Our definition of a weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance.

Donald O. Clifton

#85. Artistic imagination must remain free. It is by definition free from any fidelity to circumstances, especially to the intoxicating circumstances of history.

Andre Breton

#86. I'm not questioning *my* sexuality as much as I'm questioning the strict definitions and boxes of all *sexualities* and why we care so much about other people's intimate business.

A.S. King

#87. A plan is only a scenario, and almost by definition, it is optimistic ... As a result, scenario planning can lead to a serious underestimate of the risk of failure.

Daniel Kahneman

#88. Creeds are definitions of what it means to be a Christian. They are fences that, albeit imperfectly, seek to separate sheep from goats.

R.C. Sproul Jr.

#89. Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Patience: A support for the disappointed.

Idries Shah

#90. My definition of confidence is how you feel about yourself, and not letting the external world define you.

Bonnie St. John

#91. A phoenix ain't nuthin' but a burd.

Cab Calloway

#92. The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.

Peter Drucker

#93. We must think differently, look at things in a different way. Peace requires a world of new concepts, new definitions.

Yitzhak Rabin

#94. I have two definitions for the word "magick." The first is knowing that I can effect change through my own will, even behind these bars; and the other meaning is more experiential - seeing beauty for a moment in the midst of the mundane.

Damien Echols

#95. I'm not really sure that I have the same definition of things as other people. Like, when people talk about being "engaged" with the audience, I'm not exactly sure what they mean.

Dan Bejar

#96. You are One with everything. When you are clear about this, your definition of self-interest will change.

Neale Donald Walsch

#97. Mankind is a science that defies definitions.

Robert Burns

#98. I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that inevitably will be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay.

Sheri S. Tepper

#99. Pedagogically, we need definitions and borders. They help us get our heads around what we're talking about.

John D'Agata

#100. 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